Latest News - Page 2921

We're over in chilly Beijing, China at the moment checking out the 2013 Beat It Grand Finals being hosted by MSI. Between CS:GO games, we went down and hit the floor to see what was going on in the few booths that have been set up by the sponsors of the event.

Two items that really got our attention are the new mITX weapons that MSI are showing off that are due to hit in the first week of December. One is the upcoming Z87I Gaming AC motherboard. As the name suggests it's based on the Z87 chipset.

Alongside that we've also got GTX 760 Gaming ITX, a smaller GTX 760 designed to be installed in a MITX case that you can see above. We've got samples of both products already so keep an eye out for a review in early December. We always love those mITX products and we can't wait to see how they perform.

Rumor has it that LG is working on its on system on a chip (SoC0 that is known as Odin. There are reportedly going to be two versions of this new SoC, one will be a quad-core part, while the other will be an eight-core part.

Both SoCs will be based on ARM's Cortex A9 and A15 cores, with LG using ARM's architecture, and tweaking it to create a customized version for its devices. This isn't any different to what Qualcomm does with the Krait line of chips, or Samsung and its Exynos range. The difference will come with LG using TMSC's facilities to manufacture the SoC, as it doesn't have its own in-house fab unit like Samsung does.

This is all coming from Korean news site, DigitalTimes, who reports that the quad-core Odin chip would be baked into LG's smart TVs in 2014 and beyond. The eight-core version will most likely be baked into the next-gen G2 smartphone and future LG-made slates. I'm guessing it might even be used in an upcoming Nexus device, as LG is the company building the Nexus smartphones right now.

Microsoft has evolved Windows over the years, to the point where Windows 8.1 is all but unrecognizable to its older operating systems - like Windows 95/98. Of course, time goes by, and we can't expect Microsoft to stay in the dark ages, while everyone wants something better. Well, Windows 8 ushered in a touchscreen interface for Microsoft, something that most people don't like because, well, they don't own a touchscreen. Sure, it's great for tablets and touch-enabled PCs, but not for normal desktop users, like myself.

There's some concept art that users have made for Windows 9, that address some of these problems that Windows 8 ushered in. The Windows 9 concepts all use a Start button, something that was complained about so much with Windows 8, that Microsoft was forced to provide a Start button in Windows 8.1. They look absolutely gorgeous, but I know Microsoft won't go in this direction, unfortunately.

I wish they would offer us a touch-enabled UI (that we see in Windows 8) but with a professional/desktop-based UI, as we see in these concept pieces. This would help Microsoft gain some of those lost customers back, and it would help the company get people to upgrade from Windows 7, instead of not providing anything to the user as an incentive to upgrade.

The developers of FlatOut did have a Kickstarter set up for their upcoming game, Next Car Game, but it looks like it has met a metal-crushing death. Not many gamers coughed up the funds to back the project, so Bugbear pulled the Kickstarter.

Bugbear will still continue Next Car Game through its Early Access program, going as far as offering a demo for early backers. Bugbear explained why it pulled the game from Kickstarter:

Update: It seems that there wasn't 'someone' or a company that purchased these Bitcoins, but rather a transfer of Bitcoins. It could be that Bitstamp possibly moved its own funds around, which made this look (to a Bitcoin novice like myself) a massive transfer worth $150 million, and thus, major news - but it looks like it was not. Apologies.

Bitcoins have been going up and down in price, where we saw it rise past $600 in value just a few days ago, but now the price is beginning to stabilize. Bitcoin has been making the mainstream headlines quite a lot, but this latest transaction should see much more attention paid to the digital currency.

Someone in Germany must have quite a lot of cash on-hand, as they just acquired over 194,000 Bitcoins... which has a value of approximately $150 million. Yes, $150,000,000 in Bitcoins. Even the richest people around don't just have $150 million in cash to just spend, so are we looking at a central bank or government scooping up all these Bitcoins?

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, is one of the best-looking PC games on the market right now, with the developer coming out and saying that it is pledging its commitment to optimizing its games for PC.

We've just lived through the launches of both next-gen consoles, and now Sylvain Trottier, Associate Producer of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag has had some wise words on the Ubisoft Blog. Trottier talked about Ubisoft finishing up the R&D stages of Black Flag, where they began working on optimizing the PC version of the game first.

There are three reasons behind this: the first, is that every team member has a PC at their desk, most engineers are more experienced and familiar with the PC environment in the early stages of next-gen consoles, and finally, the PS4 and Xbox One are pretty much PCs with their x86-based architectures. He said: "It's not 100 percent linear, but at least it gives you an order of magnitude."

Microsoft has over 1 million Xbox Ones in the wild, but it looks like some of these next-gen consoles are having issues with the internal Blu-ray drive. Problem is, Microsoft has no solution just yet.

The problematic Xbox Ones are seeing a bad grinding sound when the Xbox Ones Blu-ray drive attempts to read discs. The other issue is, we don't know how many Xbox One units have been affected. Kotaku reported the issue earlier on this evening, seeing over 100 people e-mail them, with the problem on their Xbox One unit, or knowing someone with the issue.

The LSI Nytro display case at AIS continues to hold unannounced treasure for those with a quick eye. In previous years, other 'secret' products have appeared in the case, so we made sure to head directly to the Nytro display case before the doors were open to the public.

We had prior briefings on the Nytro 6000 Series, so we knew to expect working Nytro 6000 Series silicon, but the unannounced 7000 Series also just happened to be on display. Through some investigative journalism, and common sense, we were able to find some details on the 7000 Series. A word of caution, however, there are no official LSI specifications or information on these products. Time for some wild conjecture!

This card features an original take on heat sink design unlike any we have observed on a PCIe flash accelerator. The row of capacitors at the top of the PCB provide power fail protection, and the long heat sink to the bottom right likely hods the ROC that ties the four banks of NAND, hiding under the large black heat sinks, into one large volume. We can also likely expect the use of the same ROC's utilized in the new 12Gb/s MegaRAID products.

And you thought we left the show without getting some testing in on the SF3700. LSI SandForce had a public display at AIS 2013 with IOMeter running. We weren't allow to run other tests but we were allowed to dig through the results screen the existing test running on the demo.

Obviously SF3700 is in the early stages but seeing live demo's from more than one manufacture is a good thing.

When running in PCIe mode the SF3700 drives we saw at the show achieved nearly 150K IOPS. Here we see in our early look at SATA III SF3700 breaking the 91K red IOPS mark.

John Carmack co-founder and programmer at id Software has resigned from id and is focusing on working full time as Chief Technology Officer at Oculus VR. Carmack co-founded id Software twenty-two years ago and co-created games such as Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D. Carmack also founded Armadillo Aerospace in 2000. This is the second big departure from id Software this year, during the summer Todd Hollenshead former CEO and President left after seventeen years with the company.

Carmack became Chief Technology Officer of Oculus VR earlier this year in August. Carmack mentions on Twitter that he wanted to remain as Technical Advisor at id but that it did not work out. Bethesda Softworks' President of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, says that Carmack had been long interested in the work over at Oculus VR and that Carmack would like to be more engaged in that project.

id Software studio director Tim Willits says: "John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio, John's work at id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id's tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."

The folks from CEL decided that existing 3D Printers were useful, but not easy enough to use for the common person. They set out to change that with their new RoBox 3D Printer. Over the past 18 months, the CEL team has worked hard at designing a 3D Printer that is more than just a printer, they wanted an entire table-top micro-manufacturing station.

Having owned and built several 3D printers myself the first thing that I notice about the RoBox is its easily interchangeable extrusion head design. Dubbed HeadLock, the RoBox can quickly switch from a plastic deposition head to something such as a cutting stylus, or maybe even a milling head. The printing surface is unique as well and does not require any special tape to ensure a good bonding of the print material. It has been designed to be easily removable for quick print detachment.

With a price of less than $1000, anyone can plug in the RoBox and begin printing right away to the company's new AutoMaker software. AutoMaker empowers the RoBox to truly become one of the first plug-and-print 3D printers on the home market. Additionally, the RoBox has a printing resolution of just 20 microns, and prints in ABS. Below is what CEL says about their goal with RoBox.

Sapphire has had a long standing history of providing high-performing products as well as providing tools to make those products perform to the extreme. The company's latest R9 series of GPUs is not different and today Sapphire announced that it has released a new BIOS and Flashing Tool, that will help increase the performance of its R9 290 GPU.

Usually overclocking a Sapphire GPU is as simple as loading up the TriXX utility and adjusting clocks until things stabilize, but in the case of the R9 290 GPU. Its performance is capped by system as its temperature rises, and this is due to the way AMD engineered the Hawaii chip to operate. The newly released BIOS will allow the R9 290 to operate under a new fan profile, which will limit maximum fan speed to 47-percent while increasing performance and reducing noise. Head over to the source links below to download the new BIOS and Flashing Utility!

MSI's Beat It tournaments have been going strong since 2010 when the company saw the need to bring professional games together to compete in a professional gaming tournament series. Since then, hundreds of tournaments have taken place, and thousands of gamers have competed at the highest level of professional gaming.

This weekend MSI is hosting the Beat It 2013 Grand Finals in Beijing, China at the Shijingshan Stadium. More than 17 international CS:GO champion teams, and 85 players join this fantastic eSports tournament. Two of these teams, Fnatic and NearlyGod, are sponsored by MSI, and are geared up with the best hardware in the industry to go head to head with the best gamers in the world.

Champions will take home $10,000 and five MSI GE70 high-end gaming laptops equipped with WD SSHDs. MSI is the first mainstream system company to ship 1 TB WD_BLACK SSHDs in notebooks, taking mobile gaming storage to a whole new level of play. The second and third place each will get $7,000 and $5,000 cash prizes.

Yesterday we saw iFixit tear down Microsoft's next-gen gaming console, the Xbox One, and today the company is continuing the series by tearing down the new Kinect sensor. As a electronic hobbyist this is the teardown that I have been waiting for, and with the sensors new high-resolution capabilities, I can not wait to see it hacked!

Unlike the Xbox One, the Kinect is held together by screws which are hiding under labels, and a screwdriver makes quick work of opening up the case. When the Kinect is first opened up, you can see several optical sensors, and what appears to be an array of three high-intensity IR Blasters.

Also pictured is the large camera with what appears to me a mechanical focusing system. Interestingly enough, the Kinect now packed enough power that a Fan is required to keep things nice and cool, and I bet this has something to do with its sensors always being activated awaiting commands from the user. It also appears that the entire internal frame is being used as one giant heat sink to help aid in cooling. Unfortunately, the Kinect earned a repairibility score of just 6 out of 10 due to so many permanently affixed and propriety parts.

A federal judge has awarded Apple with $290 million in patent damages from Samsung, which gives Apple a total of over $900 million that will be sucked out of Samsung's bank accounts.

The patent case saw a six-woman, two-man jury hearing the case last week, where Apple claimed Samsung copied its technologies from the iPad and iPhone. Apple argued that Samsung owed them nearly $380 million in damages from lost profits, and from profits Samsung enjoyed while selling the devices that were infringing on Apple's patents, as well as royalties.

Samsung didn't stand there defenseless, so it bit back, claiming that Apple inflated the value of their patents. The South Korean giant also reiterated the important of consumer choice, concluding that damages should not exceed $52 million. The jury ended up deciding that Samsung was indeed guilty of patent infringement on 13 smartphones and tablets, including features like pinch-to-zoom, and bounce back.

It looks like The Pentagon wants to have total and utter air superiority (because, you know, the US doesn't already have some of the best military technology known to man) by adding high-powered lasers to its fleet of fighter jets.

The US Air Force has put in a request for information document with the Federal Business Opportunities website, which points to the Department of Defense being interested in getting its hands on weaponry that would be used on next-gen aircraft, years down the road in anti-access and area denial, or A2/AD, environments in order to safeguard particular interests.

The request states: "The Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) is requesting information describing concepts for airborne laser systems for future air dominance platforms. The emphasis of this effort is to identify potential laser systems that could be integrated into a platform that will provide air dominance in the 2030+ highly contested Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) environment."

The optical output for the Xbox One will only play stereo through headsets at launch. Albert Panello Microsoft Director of product planning comments in a NeoGAF thread that full Dolby Digital support will be available post launch. Although Panello does not specify any sort of release date for the update. Unfortunately users that are accustomed to using Turtle Beach, Tritton, or any other expensive headset will have to deal with having stereo for the time being.

Microsoft Director of Product Planning Albert Panello in a NeoGAF thread: "Dolby Digital is coming post launch. This was a SW scheduling issue pure and simple, and I know people are disappointed, but we will have it. Anyone with an HDMI receiver should be fine, as we pass the uncompressed 5.1 and 7.1 through HDMI as well as DTS. Even if you have a Dolby only HDMI receiver, you will still get 5.1 or 7.1 sound since those receivers should accept uncompressed surround. For the Dolby only headsets, my understanding is that these will work but you will only get stereo audio since we only pass Stereo and DTS through the optical port. I have not tested this myself, but I'm told it works. Regardless, I understand this is an inconvenience, but again we're going to have Dolby coming."

Intel may dominate the CPU industry, but it doesn't do too well in the system on a chip (SoC) market, especially against the likes of companies like Qualcomm. Well, it looks like Intel is not just going to roll over and give up, if its new Atom SoC roadmap is anything to go by.

Intel is hoping to increase CPU performance by 5x, and GPU performance by a whopping 15x, all before 2016. The current Bay Trail-based Atom SoC will be replaced in late 2014 by the 14-nm based "Cherry Trail" silicon which will feature "Airmont" GPU and next-gen Intel graphics. At the start of next year, we should begin to see smartphone-bound, dual-core "Merrifield" Atom chips, with a quad-core version arriving in 2H 2014.

In late 2014, Intel will unleash its new Atom SoC, codenamed "Sofia", which is made for entry-level devices. There will be two variants, one released in 2014 which will feature an integrated HSPA+ communications chip, while the second model, to be released in 2015, will feature LTE capabilities. Funnily enough, at first, these communications chips will be ARM-based, but will eventually be converted to x86 architecture.

It's no secret that I love development boards, and that I also love backing awesome projects I find on Kickstarter. Today I had the pleasure of being introduced to something that combines both of those things along side my philosophy of empowering everyone to become a maker.

Early this morning a friend reminded me of a project I have briefly heard of a few weeks back. The 1Sheeld project was now on Kickstarter and it was already past its funding goal of $10,000 in just a few hours. The 1Sheeld is an ad-on board (or shield) for Arduino that allows you to connect your Android smartphone and access many different shields that have been recreated in digital form.

Not only that, but 1Sheeld is able access your phones hardware and sensors such as the LCD Screen, Gyroscope, Switches, LEDs, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, GSM, Wi-Fi, GPS. This allows anyone with an Android phone, an Arduino, and a $50 1Sheeld to prototype and develop with a full range of hardware, without investing hundreds into physical shields.

Today reports have surfaced that indicate that the industry's largest mobile music streaming service, Spotify, has managed to secure $250 million in financing which raises the company's valuation to the $4 billion mark. That is up more than $1 billion in just one year.

Unfortunately, even with a valuation of $4 billion, Spotify can not seem to make money. The cause of its negative cash flow stems from what many consider an antiquated business model that many big-name record labels are holding onto quite tightly. Spotify has managed to increase its revenue in just one year to more than $600 million, but its losses also increased to $77 million. Unless Spotify figures things out in the next few years, we may have to bid adieu to the streaming service we so dearly love.