Latest News - Page 2979

Google have begun their pilot scheme for a same-day delivery service in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it will potentially open up to other areas in the near future.

The Mountain View-based search giant are offering testers a six-month period of deliveries from retailers in the area, free to the consumer, with all of the shopping taking place in a single online store. Testers of the same-day delivery service will be able to select from a number of local stores, including the big ones like Target, Staples and more.

The deliveries are then dispatched for a specific time, based upon the consumers' delivery instructions. Google are still reportedly working on a pricing scheme, but this could cost below $70 per year in order to compete with Amazon Prime.

Businessweek have a very interesting piece on Samsung, which goes right into the heart and soul of the South Korean company. We know Samsung are willing to try anything and everything when it comes to smartphone form factors, where we see anything from smaller displays (under 4-inch) right up to the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II.

But on the flip side, it's not just about offering a multitude of devices, it's about knowing when and how to play them out. It was only a couple of years ago that Android didn't exist, and now we have around one billion Android-based devices in the wild.

One of the parts of Businessweek's article is quite interesting, in that they state that Samsung executives are paranoid - but not in a bad way. Being paranoid means you never stop, like other companies I won't mention, and you continue to innovate in the hopes of keeping your existing customer base, and securing more.

Finally a patent judge making some sense. A federal judge has ruled that mathematical algorithms can not be patented, meaning that the lawsuit against Rackspace is no longer valid. Uniloc USA sued Rackspace saying that the processing of floating point numbers via the Linux operating system violated their patent.

Chief Judge Leonard Davis cited a ruling by the US Supreme Court in which they determined that mathematical algorithms cannot be patented.

Rob Tiller, Red Hat's Assistant General Counsel for IP:

BlackBerry has returned to profit after being in the red last year. This morning BlackBerry released its first quarter financial report and there is some good news for investors - Blackberry is in the black again.

The report shows that the company managed to make a profit of $94 million, despite the fact that the BlackBerry 10 not being available in the US during the first quarter. The $94 million of GAAP income stemmed from a revenue of $2.7 billion.

That is a stark contrast to $125 million net loss the company saw in the same quarter of 2012. BlackBerry says that it has sold one million BlackBerry 10 devices and managed to push out five million of its older phones. 370,000 PlayBook tablets were also shipped during the first quarter. We will have to wait until the second quarter reports are released before we find out how well the BlackBerry Z10 is doing in the US, but so far this points a much better picture for BlackBerry.

It's been a long time coming, but ADATA finally has TRIM for its LSI SandForce based SSDs. If you have a SX910, SX900, SP900, SP800, S511, S510 or S396, we recommend you update the drive to the new 5.0.7a firmware today - grab it from source #1 below. Below is a list of the changes.

1. Fixed a power management condition where the device failed to respond to COMWAKE, which might have resulted in the SSD not responding without being reset by the host

2. Fixed the normalized value calculation for SMART Attribute 9 (Power-On Hours)

GDC 2013 - We're still walking the halls of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where we popped by the AMD booth to check out an insane 5-screen EyeFinity setup.

What makes this stand out is that the 5 screens were running from a single Radeon HD 7970, pumping out nothing less than 8200x900. This is a weird resolution, as it means AMD are using five 1640x900 screens. I'm sure they're just using Full HD-capable screens with the resolution notched down to handle their huge pixel count in Tomb Raider using TressFX.

You can see our results with EyeFinity running a single HD 7970 and CF HD 7970s right here.

Mozilla are working toward a goal that could see some high-quality games being played in your web browser, powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3. Ars Technica are reporting that Mozilla "has been working on WebGL, in order to bring 3D graphics to the browser; Emscripten, a tool for compiling C++ applications into JavaScript; and asm.js, a high performance subset of JavaScript."

That might not seem like much on the surface, but Unreal Engine 3 powers some of today's best games, such as BioShock Infinite, Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City and many more. Mozilla's biggest issue right now is getting the load times down within the browser, where right now you might be waiting up to half an hour for your game to stream "a gigabyte of map data and texture from a Web server."

Mozilla currently have no ETA on when we could expect UE3 within Firefox, but at least we know it's on its way.

Australian retailers already charge an arm and a leg over their overseas counterparts, but now one particular retailer is stepping over a very expensive line. A retailer in Brisbane is battling to keep customers in their store, so now they're charging people to for "just looking."

We're not even kidding here, as the retailer has thrown up a notice on their door, stating:

It's about time the Wachowski's (who are now longer the 'Wachowski Brothers', as Larry is now Lana) got into TV. Netflix have just announced an original new series for late-2014, Sense8.

Sense8 is being developed by the Wachowskis, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5. There aren't many details at all on the show, but it's a global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten-episode run for its first season.

The idea of the Wachowskis and Straczynski working together has been something the creators have wanted for nearly ten years now, with the idea starting from a late night conversation about "the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us."

GDC 2013 - The Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is well under way, with some details on Sony's upcoming next-gen console, the PlayStation 4.

Starting with the PS4's Eye motion camera, which comes with a tilt sensor so it can tell when a player is facing in the wrong direction, or if the camera itself has fallen off of your TV stand (or wherever you choose to place it). The PS4's Blu-ray drive is set to be 3x faster than the drive found in the PS3, too.

The Remote Play functionality will be improved between the PS4 and Vita, with Sony senior staff engineer Chris Norden saying it is "much better". This is most liekyl thanks to the PS4's internals, as well as it now being powered by Gaikai. It will display games at the Vita's native resolution of 960x544, which is nice to see.

It looks like our private lives are set to not be as private as we think, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation looking at a future of monitoring online chats in real-time by as early as 2014.

FBI general counsel, Andrew Weissman, talked about the Justice Department's power to put pressure on cyber criminals during an address last week at the National Press Club in Washington. During his speech, he talked about what the FBI would like before the year ends: they want the ability to listen in on conversations that occur all over the Internet by gaining access to up-to-the-second feeds on what users would consider their secret chats.

Telecommunications within the US can be bugged with court approvals, something that has been in place since the 1994's Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, took place. Weissman added that with technology advancements coming thick and fast, the FBI has been behind the ball in tracking down criminals who have moved operations off of the streets and onto the Internet. He adds:

Nimbus Data, a pioneer in the all-flash storage market, announced a major upgrade to their product line with the update of their HALO management system. This new program injects Advanced Analytics, Open API, and Mobile Apps into their award winning storage operating system.

For those not familiar with Nimbus Data, they offer one of the world's most resilient and future-proof all-flash SSD products on the market. Nimbus Data has experienced huge growth over the last few years, with 415% year-over-year growth in 2012, and plans to match that level of growth in 2013. They are also profitable, which is a rare quality in many flash start ups today.

Their Gemini Flash Memory Array is a monster flash array that is available with up to 48 TB of flash storage in a 2U system. This array features over a million IOPS in a 2U rack, and is deployed into a number of uses, primarily focusing on database and virtualized environments. The system offers up plenty of connectivity options, with native FDR Infiniband, 40GBe and 16 GB FC.

GDC 2013 - The next stop for Trace at the Game Developers Conference 2013 in San Francisco was NVIDIA. Now that we've made peace with NVIDIA this past week, we no longer need to look over our shoulders at NVIDIA booths at events we attend.

But in all seriousness, Trace got some time look at NVIDIA's Project Shield gaming device which is a game controller and screen in one product. He wasn't too impressed with the controller itself or the small screen, and based on his first impressions he feels the games have been optimized that well at this stage. However, as he well notes, this is still a development unit and things could change in time for the Shield gaming device.

In the same video above you also get a look at some game playback on an unknown device (all we got to see at the NVIDIA booth was a screen and keyboard) from an NVIDIA GRID gaming server. If you remember back to CES 2013, GRID is NVIDIA's attempt at cloud gaming whereby you can play recent games on many different devices around your house, all streamed from a GRID gaming server. Again Trace wasn't terribly impressed with the graphics compared to direct PC graphics, however he was forgiving for the fact that you'll be able to play your game on more than one device.

Today SMART Storage Systems and IBM discussed the topic of server side flash and the benefits of using drive form factor SSDs in comparison to deploying PCIe SSD solutions in a live webinar titled "Is PCIe SSD Dead?". The webinar is also available for playback at your convenience at the BrightTALK website.

The far-ranging conversation of the benefits of drive form-factor SSDs in wide deployment in the server was certainly eye-opening and worth a view from anyone considering deploying these types of solutions into an enterprise environment. The density, performance and latency of 2.5" and 1.8" form factor SSDs is rapidly increasing in the new generation of SSDs. SAS equipped SSDs in particular are providing latency that is in the range of PCIe solutions.

These massive performance improvements are beginning to challenge PCIe SSDs in datacenter deployments. One key to the performance of drive form factor SSDs lies in the fact that they are self-contained units. All management of the storage device is handled by the SSD itself and does not impede upon precious host server resources.

Motorola's upcoming X Phone is no stranger to the rumor mill, but today we may be seeing the first image of the soon to be Googlerola flagship. A rendering of the X Phone has surfaced on the popular mobile phone site GSMArena, along with more specifications.

The X Phone rendering shows off an almost concept-like rendering of what could be one of the best looking phones I have seen to date. The screen appears to be slightly convex and surrounded by an aluminum body or bezel. The superimposed Android UI is of course Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, but it is highly believed that the device will run Android 5.0 when it goes on sale.

The X Phone is said to run a Snapdragon 800 chipset and will feature a 4.7" 1280x768 display. A 4000mAh battery will provide a super long life, which is in line with current Motorola policies. The phone is said to be IP57 compliant, which means that it will be water resistant up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to one meter. Unfortunately the tipster said that the phone will not feature an SD slot, which would be a major mistake on Motorola's part in my opinion.

In a weird twist of a rumor that is built off of another rumor, we are hearing reports this morning that the Apple iTV does exist and that it could be getting a 4K resolution. Reports are suggesting that the long-anticipated Apple iTV will arrive by the end of 2013.

In an interview with Bloomberg, renowned Apple analyst Gene Munster said that we will see an iTV device launched in Q4 of 2013, stating that there is "no question whether it's a set-top box versus a TV, it's an actual TV".

Bolstering these rumors is DigiTimes who is suggesting that the iTV will be getting a 4K resolution refresh shortly after launch. The 3840 x 2160 resolution screen could make its way into the iTV sometime in the first half of 2014, if rumors ring true. Additionally, DigiTimes cited sources familiar with Apple's supply chain stating that the internet connected TV will be voice controlled and feature a Kinect like motion sensor.

Thermaltake has been bringing us exciting new PC cases for years and they have hit a home run with its latest release. This morning Thermaltake announced its newest PC case in the Urban series, the Urban S41.

It's being billed as having a "sophisticated and cutting-edge look; designed for users who looks for powerful performance and high expandability". A brushed aluminum front panel instantly commands your attention and then you begin to notice stubble features that really set this case off like the thin blue power bar at the top, or the sleek looking top mesh.

The Urban S41 comes in both windowed and windowless designs and is capable of holding three optical drives and up to six 3.5-inch / 2.5-inch storage devices. A HDD docking station is recessed into the top, and the chassis is designed with enough room above the motherboard to place a 240 size radiator such as the one used in Thermaltake's Water 2.0.

At the Intel Solutions Summit (ISS) 2013 last week, Intel teased the world that we should expect new Ultrabooks in the near future based on their fourth-generation Core processors, otherwise known as Haswell.

Better yet, they'll start at just $599. The news came from Senior Vice President and GM of Intel's PC Client Group, Kirk Skaugen, who told an audience of top Intel parts that new Haswell-based Ultrabooks would not only arrive at cheaper price points, but with more compelling features. Skaugen said that early Ultrabooks were "just a retrofit of what was already on the market," but has promised that Haswell-based Ultrabooks will require touch-screen support and faster SSDs, high-resolution displays, voice and facial recognition technology and finally, "all-day" battery life.

Skaugen had some interesting things to say about Haswell and the future of Ultrabooks, where he said "we designed this chip from the ground up for the Ultrabook. You'll truly be able to leave your [Ultrabook] battery pack at home."

EA and DICE have officially taken the wraps off of Battlefield 4, where it has been completely and utterly announced to the world. EA have confirmed it is indeed launching in Fall 2013, and will be powered by Frostbite 3, not Frostbite 2 as previously thought.

Today, we have a 17-minute gameplay demo unleashed upon us, which I'm about to check out once I click the submit button on this news. Patrick Soderlund, Executive Vice President, EA Games Label has said:

AMD are striking while the iron is hot with GPU news today, first we just heard about the dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990, and now we're hearing that AMD are entering the cloud gaming business.

They'll be entering this business with a new range of graphics cards, the Radeon Sky series. These cards will come in three flavors, the Radeon Sky 900, Radeon Sky 700 and Radeon Sky 500. They'll come with varying amounts of stream processors, RAM, and memory bandwidth. These new GPUs are designed to power servers for cloud gaming.

The Radeon Sky 900 will feature two Radeon GPUs, providing it with 3584 stream processors, and 3GB of GDDR5 RAM for each GPU. Its siblings, the Radeon Sky 700 and Radeon Sky 500 will feature 1792 and 1280 stream processors, respectively, as well as 6GB of GDDR5 and 4GB of GDDR5, respectively.