Latest News - Page 2939

Former executive VP of EA Sports, Andrew Wilson, has just stepped into the shoes of the company's CEO position. Wilson took to EA's official website, breaking the news himself, and took some time to discuss EA's future.

He said: "From my start at EA in Australia back in 2000, through stops in Asia, Europe and now North America, I've worked with people in this company who have consistently amazed and inspired me. It's my passion for our people and the great products we all impact that gives me such excitement for our future. I hope you all feel the same level of energy and optimism that I do as we embark on this journey together."

Wilson believes that the path EA is currently walking, is the right one, which includes exploring online gaming, digital revenue streams and continuing to make high-quality AAA games, such as Battlefield 4. One of his additional goals is to instill "a culture of execution that will drive profitable growth."

If you haven't been able to tell, I am a certified home theater junkie. I have built my share of HTPCs, Raspberry Pi-based media servers, and even hacked a few phones to serve as streaming devices. Nothing I have done can come close to the awesomeness that Steiger Dynamics has just released.

Today, Steiger Dynamics announced what I consider to be one of the sexiest home theater PCs ever constructed. The new LEET Monochrome Limited Edition Gaming HTPC is a special edition of the company's Core and Reference lines of elegant, high-end HTPCs.

"The LEET Monochrome Limited Edition Gaming Home Theater PC endows gamers and creative professionals with peak performance capabilities and visually immersive computing," said Martin Hehensteiger, CEO and co-founder of STEIGER DYNAMICS. "The Monochrome Limited Edition Gaming HTPC gives enthusiasts an insane amount of power in a system that is both aesthetically beautiful, and incredibly dynamic."

Today, Greenliant Systems announced that it has started volume production of its 16GB and 32GB industrial grade SATA NANDrive embedded SSDs. The modules feature 1-bit-per-cell NAND flash memory and are ideal for long-life products that need high-endurance storage to ensure user data and applications are safe and secure.

Available in the ball grid array (BGA) form-factor, Greenliant says that the addition of the GLS85LS1016P and GLS85LS1032P NANDrives to the company's industrial grade SATA NANDrive portfolio allows customers a wider range of capacities ranging from 2GB all the way up to 32GB. The new drives feature Greenliant's internally-developed NAND controller that incorporates error correction code alongside advanced wear leveling algorithms.

"To address applications with long lifecycles, SLC SATA NANDrive will be available up to 10 years through Greenliant's Long-Term Availability (LTA) program," said Chen Tsai, senior vice president, manufacturing operations, Greenliant Systems. "With the LTA program and new SLC NANDrive products, Greenliant is reiterating its commitment to customers in markets with stringent requirements, such as automotive, avionics, industrial, medical, military and transportation."

Blizzard just announced that it would be shutting down Diablo III's most hated feature. That's right, boys and girls, the much loathed auction houses from Diablo III will be going away effective March 18, 2014. Blizzard said that both real money and in-game gold auction houses will be shut down as they feel it detracts from what the game is all about: "killing monsters and scoring cool loot."

Have you ever wanted to record your dreams? I've thought about it a few times, but honestly the concept of recording my subconscious scares the heck out of me. If a new Kickstarter campaign has its way, we will all be able to record our dreams soon and upload them to what is being billed as the "world's largest dream database."

SHADOW is an app that acts much like an alarm clock that gradually wakes you up with escalating alarms. Once awake, the app will prompt you to record what you remember from your dreams in either audible or text forms. This information would be loaded into a private dream journal that will analyze and visualize your long-term dream patterns.

The end-user--or "Dreamer"--will have the option to keep their dreams private or share them with friends and family. Additionally, dreamers can push their dreams into the cloud to join an anonymous database that uses natural language processing algorithms and keyword recognition to help identify global dream patterns. While this technology is cool and definitely something we need to research, the last thing I would like to do when I wake up is record myself describing my dreams. Head over to the source below to find out more.

Today, Rockstar games released to the long-awaited and highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto V on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. Sony says that the game is also available for digital download from the PlayStation Network.

"Grand Theft Auto V was a massive undertaking for us, I'm so proud of what the team created," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. "We cannot wait for people to finally play it."

Costing over $260 million to develop, GTA V is said to be the most comprehensive and full-featured open world games ever created. The game takes us back to Los Santos as well as the open countryside of Blaine County to once again commit crimes, cause mayhem, and explore one of the most massive open world maps ever created.

Today, ASUSTOR announced the launch of a brand new budget-friendly, entry-level NAS. The AS 2 Series NAS is designed to fill the storage needs in a personal home network and is subdivided into two different lines.

The AS-20XT series is designed around the idea of creating a personal cloud for customers who just need network storage. The AS-20XTE series is designed to give users both personal cloud storage as well as digital entertainment functionality. Both series feature a 2-Bay and 4-Bay solution, which were designed to meet the needs of consumers as well as provide an entry-level product for those using a NAS for the first time.

"In order to meet the diverse needs of individual and SOHO users, ASUSTOR has launched the economical 2 series featuring powerful Intel dual-core processors that ensure for reliable, top-notch performance," said Allen Yen, Sales Director at ASUSTOR. "The 2 series provides customers with a great value at an extremely competitive price point which significantly lowers the barriers to an entry-level NAS."

Today, the tech startup Bump announced that it has been acquired by Google in what industry analysts say is a deal worth between $30 million and $60 million. Bump was the first app that allowed users to "bump" their iPhones together to automagically transfer files from one phone to the other.

The original app has been downloaded over 100 million times. In the years, the company has expanded to feature a group photo sharing app called Flock. While the price tag of $30 million seems to be a home run for the company, it had already raised about $20 million from backers including Sequoia Capital, making the deal not so sweet.

"Bump and Flock will continue to work as they always have for now," Bump CEO David Lieb wrote in a blog post today. With the company now being owned by Google, it leaves many industry insiders to believe that we will see deep integration of Bump's IP into Android 5.0

Today, a demo video that showcases some of the special effects that NVIDIA's PhysX API powers in the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins video game popped up online. The video covers the PhysX used to animate Batman's cape, but honestly the soft shadows and particle-based weather are much more interesting to me.

Unfortunately, the video features pretty poor quality even when set to 720p resolution and does little to show the minute effects that NVIDIA's PhysX will bring to the game. Honestly, this video actually makes me feel little let down as I was looking forward to some killer graphics and a massive new level of real-time rendering. The textures appear to lack detail and I really cannot tell that much difference in the hand-to-hand combat between Arkham Origins and Arkham Asylum.

Today, Garmin announced the launch of two new items to its Forerunner line of GPS smartwatches. The new Forerunner GPS 220 and GPS 610 running watches take Garmin's involvement in wearable technology to an entirely new level.

Both of these wearable GPS's act as a personal coach by alerting you of your distance traveled, lap times, and even recovery times needed before attempting another strenuous run. Both models feature color screens, with the 620 being touch-enabled. The 620 also predicts your race time and gives you personalized oxygen consumption estimates. When combined with Garmin's HRM-Run technology, the 620 is able to measure how long your foot is on the ground rather than in-flight, which lets you compare your time per step to previous events.

"Whether running indoors or out, Forerunner 620 and 220 will change the way runners look at training," said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. "Advanced features in the 620 such as recovery advisor, VO2 max estimate, race predictor and stats on running economy, combined with connected features and training plan options found in both the 620 and 220, make these watches must haves for runners of all levels. To keep runners motivated the watches also notice if runners hit any personal records on that run, like their fastest mile, 5k, 10k, half or full marathon or their longest run to date."

Today, Rockstar Games released a new companion app for Grand Theft Auto 5 ahead of tomorrow's launch. The aptly named Grand Theft Auto: iFruit app is an apparent jab at Apple's iDevices, but it does actually serve a purpose within GTA V.

The new iFruit app allows users to create and customize vehicles that can be used in game, with the ability to make changes to almost every aspect of the vehicles in the game. Vehicle appearance as well as performance is upgradable via the app and users can even customize license plates that can be used in the online portion of the game.

"The Los Santos Customs app offers players the freedom to create their ultimate vehicle in Grand Theft Auto V from anywhere. At the bar, on the beach, on the toilet. This is the future, we're almost sure of it." Said Rockstar. "Depth of content, high production values, defecation. It's the app that has it all. Because who doesn't love tending to a virtual pet? Chop is Franklin's canine sidekick in Grand Theft Auto V. Look after him well in the "Chop the Dog" app and you will reap the benefits when playing as Franklin in Grand Theft Auto V. Pet him, feed and water him, play fetch and tug-of-war, teach him tricks."

Early this morning, video card manufacturer HIS accidentally leaked the SKUs and details on seven new GPUs the company will be offering from AMD's upcoming R-200 series. It appears that with the pending 4K refresh happening in the video resolution world AMD is looking to dump the Radeon HD name for its video cards and replace it with a new system that makes it easier to identify which cards are which.

The new simplified naming scheme works something like this. R9-280X stands for Radeon Generation 9 Model 280 Variant X. AMD says that this new naming scheme will make it easier to classify future generation cards and will enable consumers to quickly chose the right card for their needs.

Now that we have the naming scheme covered, let's move on to the leaked cards. It appears that the HIS R9-280X iPower IceQ X2 will be at the top of the list and will sport 3GB of GDDR5 Memory. The HIS R7-240 iCooler will round out the list with 1GB of GDDR5. Not much is else is known about the new R-200 series, but the complete leaked list can be seen below.

Today, Sprint announced that it would be following in the footsteps of its competition by launching its new "One Up" program that will allow its customers to upgrade their phone on a yearly basis with little upfront cost. The new program works much in the same way that T-Mobile's "Jump," AT&T's "Next," and Verizon's "Edge" initiatives work.

Sprint's new One Up program allows customers to pick up a phone with no money down and pay for the device over 24 monthly installments. An average smartphone costing around $650 will cost customers about $27 a month and the remaining balance paid in full on the 24th month. Sprint will allow existing customers still on contract to participate in the service, but they must trade in their existing phones unless they have a two-year upgrade available on their account.

The new One Up program is very similar to T-Mobile's Jump plan in that it allows customers a discount on their service plan if they opt for the monthly hardware payment. AT&T and Verizon were criticized for their versions as they require customers to pay full price for their handset but did not offer any discounts on service. With the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S, I think this Sprint waited until just the right time to launch this new program. With thousands of customers wanting to upgrade to the latest iPhone, the new One Up program should see lots of use in the coming weeks.

Today, HighPoint launched the RocketU 1144E, a new 4-port HBA that it says is the most versatile storage HBA in the industry today. The new RocketU 1144E features USB 3.0 and 6Gb/s eSATA connectivity and uncompromised per-port architecture. HighPoint says that the new device is designed for PC and Mac platforms and is the perfect solution for external eSATA and USB 3.0 storage.

HighPoint says that the RocketU 1144E benefits from the company's per-port architecture, which gives it an exclusive advantage over other HBAs on the market. With this technology, each port remains fully independant and is powered by a dedicated 5Gb/s USB 3.0 or 6Gb/s SATA controller. Additionally, the inclusion of a PCIe 2.0 x4 host interface ensures that customers experience nothing but the highest level of performance from this new 4-port HBA.

HighPoint says that the new RocketU 1144E is capable of supporting all of the industry standard USB and SATA storage devices and is compatible with Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows 7, and Mac OSX 10.8.3 or later. Linux support is also available and drivers can be downloaded from the company's website.

During an interview with TechRadar, the Art Director for GTA V, Aaron Garbut, said that Grand Theft Auto V is so packed with Easter eggs and references that he feels that it is impossible for anyone to find them all. He was asked about the fabled Yeti rumored in the first visit to San Andreas and he said that "players would be wowed" by the stuff they find in GTA V.

"There's stuff that's so obscure that most people will never see it," said Garbut. "I love the connection that social media has given us to the people that play our games... We can see what they like and what is interesting them as it happens, and this really has helped push more of these things into the game. I think everything in IV has been found, I'm not sure if the same thing will happen for 5."

For our readers who see these quotes as a challenge, you are in luck as GTA V goes on sale tomorrow! I, for one, will be picking up my copy and starting my hunt for Easter eggs. Have you pre-ordered GTA V or are planning on purchasing it tomorrow? What place will you visit first? Let us know in the comments.

Rockstar Games' $265 million sure fire hit Grand Theft Auto V, has been getting a thrashing across pirate sites in the last couple of days, but one of the biggest benefits of this is that hackers and modders have their hands deep inside of GTA V's source code.

What did they find? Evidence of GTA V to reach PC and the PlayStation 4. The evidence was buried in an XML file that has been posted on PasteBin for the world to eyeball, but we could be looking at a fake here, so don't get your hopes up just yet. We can see in the above XML file references to "Orbis" which is the codename of the PS4 dev kit OS as well as the PC. If Rockstar play their cards right, they could release the game to PC alongside the next-gen console releases, which would keep everybody happy.

We've already seen Google launch its Chromecast device, but now it looks like Sony wants to rub shoulders in the Google TV space with its new NSZ-HU1 Google TV device. This is known in the retail world as the Sony BRAVIA Smart Stick.

The BRAVIA Smart Stick is an MHL dongle that runs both Google TV and Sony's BRAVIA apps. It has a remote with a QWERTY keyboard and voice search support. The picture-in-picture feature lets you see a browser in one window, and the TV in another. The BRAVIA Smart Stick can run Android apps from the Google Play Store, but we should know more details when it is released properly. Hopefully this means we see Sony shipping non-Smart TVs, and then throw in the BRAVIA Smart Stick as an optional, but cool accessory.

Well, well, shots fired from a certain developer according to an interview with game developers that Edge spoke to, who said that the PlayStation 4 runs most non-optimized games 50% faster than the Xbox One. Edge's sources have said that memory reads are around 40-50% faster on the PS4, and the built-in Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) is also around 50% faster.

What will this result in for gamers? A PS4 rendering a high-quality scene at around 30FPS at 1920x1080, while the Xbox One will struggle with just 20FPS... but at just 1600x900. Edge said that one developer event went as far as saying that the Xbox One's ESRAM is a "pain." Does this news coincide with the latest reports that Microsoft has been increasing the CPU and GPU clocks speeds of the Xbox One in the weeks leading up to mass production? It would sure as hell make sense now, wouldn't it?

One developer that Edge spoke to said: "The clock speed update is not significant. It does not change things that much. Of course, something is better than nothing." Before you jump to conclusions, remember that the PS4 won't be better at everything, as this is just for "non-optimized games." The Xbox One does have some parts of its internals that are superior to the PS4, such as complicated rendering techniques like raytracing and procedural generation.

It looks like Samsung is putting down $500 million to build a new testing facility in Xi'an, an industrial city in Northwest China. The new facility will see packaging and testing done under its roof, and is the South Korean giants latest investment in a string of investments for its future in the last couple of months.

The new facility will be built in the same city that Samsung built a $7 billion chip plant in last year, on top of the $1.7 billion it spent in 2012 on improving its operations in the manufacturing hub Kunshan. All of these steps that Samsung has made are all part of a $41.4 billion capital expansion that Samsung started last year. The electronics giant has seen gigantic success in the mobile devices segment, and is now packed with cash.

The company is using its flow of cash to invest in its future, which we're constantly seeing. In its Chinese supply chain network, Samsung has over 250 manufacturers, which is definitely saying something. The new factory will begin construction in January next year, and should be finished by the end of 2014.

According to Netflix's Vice President of Content Acquisition, Kelly Merryman, the company partly determines which shows it should buy based on the popularity of such shows on file-sharing platforms, which should come as quite the shock.

The video streaming company sees itself as one of the biggest competitors to pirate sites, where Netflix offers a subscription-based model, and pirate sites offering it for free. But, while the pirate sites may offer it for free and make money from ads and other sources, Netflix uses these sites to gain information on which shows are popular, which helps them decide on which content they should acquire for their ever-growing base of customers.

This week, the video streaming giant rolled out its Netflix service to the Netherlands, with Merryman stating: "With the purchase of series, we look at what does well on piracy sites." Mellyman used Prison Break as a prime example, saying that Netflix acquired the rights to the Wentworth Miller starring prison drama because it is heavily pirated locally. Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, even commented, saying that the company is aware that people download content without permission through pirate sites.