Latest News - Page 2953

Today, MSI unveiled the world's thinnest and lightest 17-inch portable gaming laptop. The GS70 is designed to accommodate the power needs of the most demanding gamer, while still maintaining extreme portability that is needed to take the next battle on the road. MSI says that the GS70 features a "lethal arsenal of cutting-edge components" that high-level gamers require to give them that extra edge over the competition.

The GS70 features Intel's latest 4th generation Core i7 4700HQ Haswell processor, 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M 2GB graphics processor. Storage is available in two configurations that includes a dual 128GB mSATA SSD setup in RAID 0 with a 1TB HDD for mass data storage. The second configuration includes a single 128GB SSD with a 750GB HDD for file storage. Measuring in at just 0.85 inches thick, the GS70 only weighs 5.7lbs thanks to its all aluminum chassis.

Additionally, the laptop features a 17.3-inch full HD display, Killer E2200 Gaming NIC, a built-in headphone amplifier, four USB 3.0 ports, a 720p HD webcam, and a full color backlit gaming keyboard with anti-ghost keys from keyboard giant SteelSeries. MSI says that the dual-SSD version will retail for $1999.99, while the single-SSD version will cost consumers $1799.99

One of the most anticipated games of all time is nearly here, but Grand Theft Auto V is only hitting current generation consoles meaning we're going to see the games vast open world clamped down by the ageing hardware in the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Gadget Mill have found out, through GTA V's official website, that the game won't be running at 1080p. They're claiming that the website didn't include any in-game screenshots above 720p. To me, the screenshots look fantastic, which means we're seeing it rendered on a PC, or super amounts of AA at 720p.

Rockstar's previous titles, such as Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne 3 and GTA IV, all ran at 720p. Current generation consoles are really holding games back, and GTA V is one of them. Let's hope that Rockstar unleash the open-world game onto next-gen consoles.

One thing that stays common between early adopters of Google Glass is its not-so-great battery life, but designer and inventor, Kevin Alan Tussy, has an idea that could triple the battery life of Google's wearable device.

His idea is called PWRGlass, which is an external battery pack that would be sold as an optional accessory to Glass. PWRGlass isn't anywhere near ready, with the only form it exists in right now is in a computer, as a 3D render. But, as it stands, it features a 2000mAh lithium-ion battery that is built into the sunglass band-like design.

There would be a microUSB connector on PWRGlass, that would allow a user to recharge both the PWRGlass, and Google Glass, at the same time. The designer is also working on a second device that would give Glass an injection of storage from its on-board 12GB.

I've been using Android 4.x Jelly Bean since day one, and I'm in love with it. But, it has seen a slow adoption rate, but thanks great selling smartphones like the Galaxy S4, HTC One and Xperia Z, Jelly Bean has finally become the dominant version of Android.

The numbers speak for themselves, with the digits posted on the Android Developers website. As it stands right now, Android 4.1 and 4.1 are found on 40.5% of all Android devices, up from 38% of devices last month. This news means that Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" users are upgrading, with Android 2.3 numbers down to 33%, just 1% lower than June's numbers of 34%.

We are finally seeing 8-core processors in our smartphones, but do we really need all of this power? According to chipmaker Qualcomm, we don't. More specifically, Qualcomm's Senior Vice President, Anand Chandrasekher has come out and said 8-core processors for smartphones are just "dumb."

Chandrasekher likened adding more cores to taking eight lawnmower engines, putting them together and calling it an eight cylinder Ferrari engine. Chandrasekher added that Qualcomm are focusing on providing consumers with a good experience, which starts with a good modem, long battery life and an affordable price point.

The Qualcomm executive said that adding more cores into the mix is like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. Your move, Samsung.

I received an e-mail late last night from OUYA, I was hoping it was a shipping confirmation on my two custom controllers - which it wasn't - but it's not all bad news. Original backers are set to receive $13.37 credit for the OUYA Discover store.

Why the handouts? It's because OUYA are sorry about some original backers, like myself, not receiving their consoles on time. Some users received their consoles after they hit retail shelves, controllers have been delayed, and more. OUYA says: "If you feel you've had any kind of less-than-OUYA experience with us (a polite way of saying at any time you felt pissed at us for whatever the reason: late shipment, missing controllers, a delayed response to a CS ticket you opened), we'd like to give you a store credit of $13.37 to use toward any purchase(s) on DISCOVER."

Not too bad at all, but I think OUYA still have a way to go yet. Hopefully this fixes the issue of 73% of OUYA owners not purchasing a game yet, too. Our review will be online this week, so be sure to check back! Until then, you can check out our unboxing of the OUYA console.

BioShock Infinite has been quite popular on the PC, selling over four million copies since launch but now Irrational Game's hot-selling title is jumping over to the Mac.

Apple users will be able to purchase BioShock Infinite for the Mac on August 29 through Steam, the Mac App Store, and Aspyr's GameAgent storefront. GameAgent members will receive a 20% off pre-order coupon code on the game's page. If you pre-order through Aspyr, you'll receive the Columbia's Finest DLC Pack, which includes 500 Silver Eagles, five lock picks, six unique gear items and a couple of weapon upgrades for the shotgun, and sniper rifle.

The Mac system requirements aren't too bad:

Today, we're seening evidence that Microsoft has plans to build its own version of so-called SmartGlasses similar to that of Google Glass. A recent patent application from the software giant shows off what appears to be augmented reality glasses for multiplayer gaming.

The patent shows off what appears to be a pair of normal sunglasses with a camera and microphone mounted in the nose bridge. Sensors would be located at different positions around the frame as well as speakers mounted near the ears. The patent claims device could receive voice commands, track your eyes, calculate depth, and recognize the faces of fellow players.

This patent falls in line with a similar patent by Microsoft recently that details how to augment live events with augmented reality displays. At the moment, it is still unclear if Microsoft has produced any prototypes or if this patent is simply IP.

Today, Microsoft announced plans on how Xbox Live will be policed in the future. Dubbed Enforcement United, the new policing system allows community members like you to volunteer to the enforcement team. Those volunteers will have the opportunity to earn rewards such as new avatar clothing, forum badges, and even Xbox Live Arcade games.

In the beginning, the only powers the enforcement team members will have will be the ability to force a user to change their gamer tag if it uses inappropriate terms, names, or words. Eventually Microsoft plans on adding the ability of enforcement volunteers to report players for illegal activity, hate speech, profanity, and insensitive treatment for the vocalization of controversial of topics.

"The Enforcement United program puts part of the enforcement process in the hands of our valued Xbox Live Gold subscribers," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "It's our way of directly involving the Xbox Live community in our efforts to foster and maintain a safe and enjoyable environment for all our members. Eligible volunteers are given the ability to judge whether certain types of content violate our Code of Conduct. If there is sufficient agreement within the community that the content breaks the rules, we'll take enforcement action on behalf of the community!"

We're not far from the launch of the NSA's Microsoft's Xbox One console, with Major Nelson announcing today that the GPU in the Xbox One having its clock speed increased.

Major Nelson announced the news during his talk with Xbox's Marc Whitten, saying that the changes will allow the next-gen console from Microsoft push out better graphics. Nelson noted that Microsoft have been listening to fans who have been saying that the Xbox One is less powerful than the PlayStation 4, so they've done something about it.

The first of these improvements is something Microsoft call a "mono driver", which is just a graphics driver that is optimized for the Xbox One. Most developers are already using this, according to Microsoft: "You start with the base DX driver and you take out all parts that don't look like Xbox One and you add in everything that really, really optimises that experience. Almost all of our content partners have picked it up now."

With all the recent revelations and allegations about the NSA and other foreign agencies been able to spy on you through backdoors in your computers and through the microphones on your smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, it should come as no surprise that your Smart TV may be spying on you as well.

It's not pleasant all the stories are popping up at the same time, as this week the world's largest security conference known as Black Hat took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yesterday, two researchers named Aaron Grattafiori and Josh Yavor demonstrated several vulnerabilities found in the 2012 models of Samsung's Smart TV line. The demonstration took place as Black Hat was wrapping up and it showed how hackers could turn on the built-in camera, take control of social media apps, and access files that were stored on the television.

"Because the TV only has a single user," Grattafiori explained in an interview with Mashable, "any type of compromise into an application or into Smart Hub, which is the operating system--the smarts of the TV--has the same permission as every user, which is, you can do everything and anything."

Today, Samsung has admitted to allegations that developers were paid to mention its developer competition in the forums of the giant developer community Stack Overflow. Samsung says that a PR firm hired to promote the competition was offering the bloggers and developers "cash for content." In a statement to The Verge, Samsung condemned this behavior and says that it is "clearly against Samsung corporate policy."

Samsung says that as soon as it learned of the bribery taking place, it canceled the plans for the developer competition and parted ways with the firm. Samsung said, "We remain committed to engaging in transparent and honest communications with consumers." PR firm Fllu, the culprit behind the content buying tactics, apologized and claimed that they were a third party firm hired by another firm to handle some of the PR duties for the competition. Fllu's COO said in a statement that the tactics his company used were "misguided, unethical, and wrong."

This whole practice of seeding forums, blogs, and comments with paid content is known in the industry as "Astroturfing" and it is common for third, fourth, or fifth party shady ad agencies to do this without the main PR firm or client ever knowing about it. Not every client is innocent, though, because as the inception grows deeper, it makes it very hard to trace it all the way back up to the top and catch a major corporation red-handed.

It looks like Sony are starting to make some money from their smartphone business - and so they should - they've been releasing some great smartphones lately, such as the Xperia Z, and the new Xperia Z Ultra.

Sony's latest earnings report showed that the Japanese company sold 9.6 million smartphones in the last quarter, a huge improvement year-over-year for the same quarter in 2012 of just 7.4 million units. As for the business side of things, Sony made a $60 million profit in their smartphone division, which is a stark contrast to the same quarter of last year, which saw them gobble up a $28.1 million loss.

This might not sound like much, but this is big for Sony considering the strong competition in Apple and Samsung. These two companies secure most of the profits in the smartphone market, and Sony are making waves pretty quickly if you ask me.

It looks like conspiracy theorists aren't so crazy after all, with the last couple of weeks proving them more and more right. Well, now we're getting told about yet another NSA spy program: XKeyscore.

What is XKeyscore? Well, we'll let the NSA tell you: XKeyscore is their "widest reaching" system for developing intelligence from the Internet. XKeyscore gives NSA analysts the ability to search through the entire database of your information, without any authorization whatsoever. This means they don't require a warrant, court clearance, or any signature from anyone above their pay grade.

All an NSA analyst must do is complete a simple on-screen form, and just mere seconds later your online history appears before their eyes. The NSA claims that XKeyscore covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet."

Micron have just closed a deal to purchase Elpida for an estimated $2 billion. Micron have been working on the deal to acquire the Japan-based company since mid last year.

Included in the deal are the entirety of Elpida's assets, which include a DRAM fabrication facility located in Hiroshima, Japan and a 65% stake in Rexchip, who are another memory company with a DRAM fabrication facility in Taiwan. Micron also scored Elpida's 100% stake in Akita Elpida Memory, who owns an assembly and test facility in Akita, Japan.

During a statement, Micron said that Elpida had built themselves a strong presence in the mobile DRAM market using advanced technologies to target mobile phones and tablets. Considering Elpida is one of Apple's biggest clients, this is a huge opportunity for Micron.

I haven't updated my Nexus 4 to Android 4.3 just yet, but it looks like those that have are finding issues with the latest update. Some users are reporting overheating, rapid battery drain, frequent crashing while in use and a perpetual loop during boot which renders their Nexus 4 unusable.

Other users are reporting that their Nexus 4 has become too slow to be usable. There are other reports from users that state passwords not being requested, which prevents their Nexus 4 from being unlocked. Whereas some users are reporting that there is no multitouch capability, reception issues, data disappearing, and applications that have gone missing.

The bad news for Android 4.3 on the Nexus 4 doesn't end there, with other users reporting that a device erase and factory reset fix the issues, but users shouldn't have to resort to formatting their phone to resolve an OS update problem.

If you still thought you had privacy after all of the news you've been reading about the NSA PRISM system, or the GCHQ, then you'd be wrong. Very wrong. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the FBI has the power to remotely activate microphones in Android smartphones and laptops to record conversations.

This is all coming from a single anonymous former US official, who says that remotely forcing a cellular microphone to listen in on a conversation isn't something new. The FBI used something they called "roving bugs" to spy on alleged mobsters back in 2004, and further back in 2002 they used the roving bugs to keep tabs on supposed criminals using the microphone in a vehicle's emergency call system.

The anonymous US official said that there is a dedicated FBI group that regularly hacks into computers, where they use a mix of custom and off-the-shelf surveillance software which they purchase from private companies. One of the Journal's sources said that the "Remote Operations Unit" will sometimes install software by physically plugging in a USB device, but they can also do it through the Internet by "using a document or link that loads software when the person clicks or views it."

I was one of those people that didn't really enjoy Avatar that much, but we all know it was one of the most successful movies of all times at the box office. James Cameron and 20th Century Fox have now confirmed that Avatar 2, 3 and 4 will be released one year apart starting from 2016.

Cameron has been spending some time in New Zealand working on the story for Avatar, with the famous director now coming out with 20th Century Fox and announcing the three sequels to Avatar. Cameron has called in some help for the script, with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver stepping on, as well as Black Dahlia screenwriter Josh Friedman and Savages writer Shane Salerno.

Cameron says: "Building upon the world we created with Avatar has been a rare and incredibly rewarding experience. In writing the new films, I've come to realize that Avatar's world, story and characters have become even richer than I anticipated, and it became apparent that two films would not be enough to capture everything I wanted to put on screen. And to help me continue to expand this universe, I'm pleased to bring aboard Amanda, Rick, Shane and Josh - all writers I've long admired - to join me in completing the films' screenplays."

Yesterday, I covered a story about the big chip manufacturers allegedly installing hardware level backdoors into the processors used in all of our PCs. The allegations came from two security industry experts who both claim to have proof of concept demonstrations already. Earlier today, AMD's Michael Silverman contacted me with an official statement on the matter in which he called the allegations "unfounded."

With the Black Hat conference wrapping up today, we will be keeping our eyes open for any whitepapers or proof of concept demos that prove the backdoors exist. I have reached out to both of the security experts for statements as well, but have yet to receive a response. If and when that response comes in, I will be sure to post an update.

Today, Phanteks launched a new legacy with the announcement of a new addition to their line of custom PC hardware. The Enthoo Primo is Phanteks' first foray into the PC chassis market, and boy did they make one heck of a first impression. Phanteks says that the Enthoo Primo combines innovative design and rich styling that appeals to enthusiast of any caliber.

The case features a uniquely located PSU mounting point that is thermally isolated from the rest of the case. Additionally, a multifunctional cable/ reservoir cover and other features give the case massive cooling potential. The PSU is now isolated in the back of the case away from all of the other thermally sensitive components. The case is designed with exclusive mounting brackets that hide cables as well as provide perfect mounting locations for liquid cooling reservoirs.

The Enthoo Primo features mounting locations for up to 16 fans, a built in PWM hub that allows PWM control of all fans in the system, including 3-pin units. The case has provisions for five 5.25-inch ODDs, six 3.5-inch HDDs, or twelve 2.5-inch HDDs / SSDs. The top of the case is also able to accommodate a 480mm radiator up top, a single 140mm out back, a 240mm in the front, and another 480mm on the bottom. Graphic cards up to 515mm in length are also able to squeeze in to the Enthoo Primo.