Latest News - Page 2975

Raspberry Pi production did start off in China, but it has slowly started crawling into the UK since September. One of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's distributors, Premier Farnell/Element14, makes 100% of their Pis in the Welsh Sony factory in Pencoed, where the Pis are built under license.

Sony have been making Pis since September, but have now had their 500,000th Pi roll off their production lines. Another great stat, is that nearly 40,000 Pis are being made in Pencoed every week, with this number set to expand even more. Even at these 'small' numbers, the Foundation are having a hard time keeping up with demand across the world. Gerald Kelly, the GM of Sony's Pencoed plant, said:

Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 might have already looked tempting enough, but how does $25 worth of Google Play credit sound? Yeah, I thought so. Samsung are offering $25 worth of Google Play credit when you purchase a Galaxy Note 8.

All you need in order to receive the $25 credit, is the box your Note 8 came in, power up the device and connect it to Wi-Fi. From here, you the form's instructions, fill in your model, serial number and MAC address. Minutes later you should receive your gift code in the Gmail account that you provided. The Galaxy Note 8 perks page is where you'll need to go.

Apple needs a come back in the mobile OS department, and it looks like iOS 7 could just be that. The Cupertino-based giant is set to tease the world with iOS 7 at their Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June.

Then we have news from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Haberty, who predicts Apple's iOS 7 will include a new Internet service, such as a mobile payment system that will continue on from Passbook, or a new music streaming service - something we've heard about before - where she expects this new service to be iOS 7's 'killer app'.

We've already heard of the huge UI overhaul on iOS 7, so it looks like Apple is now playing catch up to Android - because if the world's most advanced mobile operating system was indeed titled correctly, we should only expect evolution, not revolution.

Brian White, an analyst at Topeka, has issued a new research note with some thoughts on what to expect from what the analyst is calling the iPhone 5S. White expects Apple to release the iPhone 5S this summer.

White did previously predict that the new iPhone would come in multiple screen sizes, but he now reports that the iPhone 5S will continue with its 4-inch screen size. White claims the left side volume and mute buttons will be arranged differently, and that the iPhone 5S will come with the rumored fingerprint technology. This addition to the phone will be what Siri was to the iPhone 4S, differentiating the devices.

White also touches on the subject of a cheaper iPhone that will be released this summer, where he says:

Project Unity is an interesting beast, a single, unified gaming console made by hardware hacker (among other things) 'Bacteria'. Project Unity crams in a bunch of the best consoles from the past couple of decades into a single gaming box.

Project Unity includes Sega Master System, Neo Geo MVS, GameCube, Dreamcast, Saturn, Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 7800, Turbografx 16, PS1/PS2, Mega Drive, NES, Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64 and Amstrad GX4000 games. The console was made out of authentic hardware and doesn't use any emulators of combo units. It does all of this from a single power supply, video output and custom-built controller - no matter the system selected at the time.

According to market intelligence firm ABI Research, tablet sales are set to create $64 billion worth of sales this year - up 28% year-over-year. Over the course of 2013, there are set to be approximately 150 million tablets sold, up 38% year-over-year.

Since 2010, Apple has been the tablet champion - where last year's shipments saw 60% of tablets purchased by customers come with iOS while Google's Android OS sat at 37%. The remaining 3% of the market was divided up to Windows (in its many flavors), BlackBerry Tablet OS and unidentified OS implementations.

It should be an interesting year, to see if Apple can hold onto that 60% of the tablet market, or whether they'll see those numbers erode away as people move toward Android-based slates.

AMD are definitely doing their best to jump back into the market, as they're really struggling right now. They've won contracts to have various products in all three next-gen consoles, and their Never Settle promotion for Radeon GPUs is doing very well.

In the CPU market however, things aren't so well, as Intel are just dominating too much. Haswell is about to launch, Intel's fourth-generation Core processor, and AMD have, well, nothing - or do they? There are now rumors going around that AMD are to release a super-FX CPU based on the Vishera architecture that makes the FX-8350 come to life, which runs at 4.2GHz.

This new CPU, codenamed 'Centurion', will be released in very limited quantities and would ramp the clock speed up to 5GHz - all on air. There's no details on what voltage or supporting hardware needed to run at this speed - but if the rumors are true, we're looking at around $795 for this limited edition FX CPU.

According to a CNet report, the next iPad--likely the iPad 5--could be slimmed down by shrinking the LEDs used to backlight the screen. They cite NPD DisplaySearch, an authority on all things display related: "It's likely that part of the thinner/lighter design will be reducing the size of the LED backlight, partly by making the display more efficient and partly by using more efficient LEDs."

Other option for Apple to reduce the thickness and weight of the next iPad would be to change the touch sensor: "The other significant change that we feel is likely is a shift to a film-based touch sensor," Paul Semenza, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, wrote.

Apple has also been rumored to be looking into different display technology, such as IGZO. Sharp has heavily pursued IGZO and was originally expected to be present in the third-gen iPad.

LG is looking to combat rival Samsung's Galaxy S4 head on with its flagship Optimus G Pro, which features similar hardware included in the Galaxy S4. With some planned software tweaks and a "Value Pack" upgrade, the Optimus G Pro will even more closely resemble the Galaxy S4 in function.

The Value Pack will introduce a "Smart Video" feature which like Samsung's Smart Pause, will pause video when a user's eyes are not focused on the screen. Also included in the upgrade pack is the ability to pause live recording and start it again in the same video file. Users will also be able to use both the front and rear cameras to capture both a photo of the subject and the user at the same time.

Existing Optimus Pro smartphones in the Korean market will begin getting the Value Pack upgrade beginning today, with further roll-out taking place in the coming weeks.

Earlier today we were invited to the GIGABYTE headquarters here in Taipei, Taiwan to get a look at the motherboard maker's brand new pride and joy. No, for once we're not talking about a new motherboard... we're talking about a new lab.

Staff at GIGABYTE had been pushing senior staff at the Taiwanese company to sign off on a new "OC Lab" for its employees to spend their days overclocking and tweaking new GIGABYTE motherboards and video cards. HiCookie, a famous Taiwanese overclocker, joined GIGABYTE some years ago now and I can indeed confirm each time I visited him, he was slowly taking over cubical by cubical, with all of his overclocking hardware and gear. He and others at the company needed such a new place to be free and overclock, till they can overclock no more.

Eventually the bosses at GIGABYTE signed off on the overclocking lab, known simply as the "OC Lab". GIGABYTE invited some local press and overclockers there earlier today, where we christened it with a couple of drinks. It will be the new home for HiCookie when he moves into the OC Lab next week - he would have been in there by now if it were not for IDF Beijing, which he just returned from.

Nokia seems to be one of the few brands taking the time to update older mobile hardware. Microsoft's updates are sporadic at best and non-existent at worst. However, Nokia is taking care of the issue by releasing updated firmware for its popular Lumia 920, 820, and 620 devices.

The updates, said to be rolling out over the coming weeks, is already available on some users' devices. It brings various improvements, which are listed on the Lumia 920 support page:

The 820 and 620 are also getting the improvements listed above. The 620 is also gaining the following improvements:

We reported the bad numbers of PC shipments in Q1 earlier today, and since then Microsoft stocks have dropped by around 4.4% to $28.93 at the time of writing. Not only that, but other technology stocks have dropped, too.

Dell, HP and Intel were down in stock prices riding the news of Q1 shipment numbers. Research firm IDC had partly blamed Windows 8 for the drop in PC sales, noting that HP's shipments declined 24% year-over-year, backed up by Dell's numbers which dropped 11%. Now several Wall Street analysts have downgraded Microsoft stock, so I'm sure we'll see it tumble more in the coming days and weeks.

Today, NVIDIA is hosting its investor day at which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang showed off graphics produced with its next-generation mobile GPU. The new GPU is currently known as Kepler Mobile and Huang said that NVIDIA made a huge investment to take its high-end Kepler products and shrink them down for use in mobile devices.

The interesting benefits of this is that smartphones and tablets could soon be able to play games that utilize DirectX 11. "We want to get multiple years ahead of the competition. It was worth the sacrifice," Huang said.

To show what Kepler Mobile is capable of, Huang demoed Kepler Mobile playing Battlefield 3. The future of tablet gaming looks bright indeed.

Google has introduced a new tool that Facebook and other sites with lots of personal information should take note of. Called Inactive Account Manager, the new tool allows you to decide what to do with your data after your death or inability to access Google's services.

Like the name implies, the tool keeps track of how long it has been since you last logged in to a Google service. Once it passes a certain threshold set by each user, Google will either delete the data, allow someone else to access it, or something else. Before the inactive period time is up, Google will warn you with a text message and e-mail.

Intel has detailed overclocking the new Haswell architecture at IDF Beijing and not much has changed from overclocking Ivy Bridge. One major difference between Ivy Bridge and the upcoming Haswell architecture is that Haswell features just one voltage input that can be as high as 3.04v. Ivy Bridge had numerous different voltage inputs that were controlled externally.

The one new rule of thumb for overclocking Haswell is that the input voltage (VCCIN) needs to be at least 400mV higher than the core voltage (VCORE). This yields VCCIN >= VCORE + 400mV.

Other changes include an increased max multiplier--80x vs 63x--though this doesn't mean Haswell will be able to achieve 8Ghz. Intel has also included BCLK ratios that are present on the X79 platform.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently offered $100,000 to anyone who could improve the condom. While many of us snickered at the idea, some people are taking the challenge very seriously, and are creating some truly innovating concepts.

Many of us are familiar with the Slingshot Channel on YouTube where Joerg Sprave builds some monster sized, rubber band powered, projectile firing weapons of mass destruction slingshots. When he heard about Bill Gate's call to action, he did the only natural thing any self-respecting slingshot maker would do, he made a condom firing slingshot.

In the video above, Joerg Sprave shows off a slingshot-esque "Condom Gun", which looks to be as painful, as you were just imagining. The device works by "cocking" a sliding condom application apparatus. The gun is then placed in position, the trigger is pulled, and the condom is applied in the blink of an eye with a loud thud.

I'm a huge fan of high-resolution displays, and simply cannot wait for 4K to arrive just that little bit cheaper - I really want 4K 120Hz-capable displays - I'm dreaming, I know. But it looks like Apple could be pushing forward with 4K, refreshing iMacs, Cinema Displays and MacBook Pros with the high-resolution goodness.

Rumor has it Apple is moving toward 4K thanks to the new Intel Thunderbolt release, which the chipmaker showed off during a demo called "Thunderbolt Technology Update". This is basically the second-generation Thunderbolt technology, which is capable of pushing "4K video file transfer and display simultaneously". Marco Armanet, co-founder of Tumblr and founder of Instapaper, has said on his blog:

We heard Microsoft's Adam Orth talking about the always-on debacle that is sure to light up Internet messageboards and social networks across the world in the coming months and years, but it looks like the Microsoft creative director is no longer working with Microsoft.

A close source of Orth has told Kotaku that he resigned from the company, and wasn't fired. Microsoft were asked to confirm the news, with a spokesperson for the company responding with "we do not comment on private personnel matters". Microsoft did apologize because of Orth's comments, hours after his rant on Twitter.

One would gather that all of the publicity he received from the Internet has caused the former MS creative director to resign from his position. I'm sure he'll talk about it soon enough.

The local arm of Disney has announced the multi-tiered home video release of 2012 CG animated flick Wreck-It Ralph for the 24th April, available on DVD, Blu-ray double play (with DVD) and 3D release featuring the 3D and 2D versions on two discs, along with a DVD.

Wreck-It Ralph, utilizing the voices of John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman was released to both critical and financial acclaim and features cameos from video gaming history's most beloved characters such as Sonic The Hedgehog, Bowser, Zangief and Q*bert.

Both Blu-ray releases feature a number of worthwhile additional features, such as behind the scenes featurettes, faux video game commercials, and the Disney short Paperman which appeared before the theatrical release. On the 3D release, the short is also featured in 3D.

The developer behind the PlayStation 3-exclusive game Heavy Rain, is hiring staff for some upcoming multiplayer title(s). A job listing spotted by Kotaku states that the developer is looking for a "creative lead online programmer with a passion for online gaming in order to be with us for our future AAA projects."

Quantic Dream says they're looking for an experienced programmer with a "strong understanding of the multiplayer genre". Up until now, Quantic Dream's games have been single-player experiences, driven heavily by their story. Next-gen consoles might help all of this, where we might see some multiplayer elements.

The thing is, Quantic Dream are no normal developer - they don't just release a game, they invest so much time into the details within the game world, that this multiplayer news should excite all gamers. Multiplayer within a Quantic Dream game could see gamers playing characters, within the single-player world. What if it was your job to play a detective, and you could lie or tell the truth, kill the main character or not, and have multiple choices through an open-world game?