Latest News - Page 2988

Corning, the company behind the uber scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass used in many smartphones, has said that it does not think that any smartphone manufacturers will be able to make use of flexible glass any time soon.

Corning knows a thing or two about flexible glass as it has been hard at work on a project called Willow, which is in fact a flexible glass that can be rolled up like a newspaper. While the technology exists, and we have seen prototypes, the glass giant thinks that most smartphone manufactures are just not ready to take full advantage of the technology at this stage.

"People are not accustomed to glass you roll up," said Corning president James Clappin, after an event marking the opening an $800 million factory for liquid-crystal-display glass. "The ability of people to take it and use it to make a product is limited." That does not mean that we will not see Willow make an appearance for three years, Corning expects to see it in things like solar panels soon.

It's that time again folks - Science Friday is here, and today's post is coming a little early thanks to SpaceX. At 10:10am EST, Elon Musk's successful space flight company will be launching its next Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule on its way to the International Space Station and we can all watch it live!

Beginning at 9:30am EST, SpaceX will begin streaming live from the launch pad located at NASA's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the ISS on March 2nd and is filled with about 1,200 pounds of supplies including materials for about 160 new experiments.

When it returns to Earth three weeks later, on March 25th, it will be carrying about 2,300 pounds of spent cargo, trash and completed experiments. If everything goes as planned, this will be SpaceX's third successful trip to the ISS. For the true space geeks out there, each Falcon 9 rocket weighs 735,000 pounds, generates a thrust of 1,320,000 foot-pounds and cost roughly $133 million each mission.

The creators behind the Ouya console will begin shipping the consoles to Kickstarter backers on March 28. That's right, just one more month until you will be able to get your hands onto your very own Ouya console. The consoles are currently being produced with full launch still set for June.

Ouya is the console that everyone is looking forward to. It blew through its $950k funding goal by raising nearly $8.6m. It will be available in stores for around $100 with extra controllers coming in at $50. They expect to release new versions every year, likely featuring new hardware.

avast! antivirus has announced that the latest version of their award-winning antivirus software is now available. Version 8 brings with it numerous new technologies to improve virus detection as well as detection speed. "As an antivirus should remain focused on the virus spreads," said the CEO of AVAST Vince Steckler. "And we have managed to achieve this by leveraging our unique advantage: A strong base of 177 million users worldwide."

Numerous new features aid in the rapid detection of malware:

You can download the latest version of avast! antivirus free version from avast!'s website.

Futuremark has announced an update to their 3DMark 11 benchmark that makes the software completely compatible with the Windows 8 operating system. Futuremark says that scores from the new version are completely compatible and comparable to those that were generated by version 1.0.3.

The update comes with the following improvements:

The Futuremark team has also fixed several bugs that were present in the previous version. The new version of 3DMark 11 can be downloaded from Futuremark or will be automatically updated when Steam is next started.

Sony keeps releasing tidbits of information here and there about its upcoming next-gen console, the PlayStation 4. In images released today Sony is giving us an up-close look at the portable and social aspects of the PS4.

The high-resolution screenshots show off some of the upcoming console's graphical user interface, but more importantly some of them give us a first look into how the new console will integrate with social media as well as mobile devices such as tablets and phones.

Other screens showcase the home page, game streaming and user profiles. I have posted all of the images below in the news image gallery in hopes that they will keep your appetite wet until we actually see an actual image of the mysterious PlayStation 4.

Apple's iTunes U first launched in 2007, offering thousands of online education courses from over 1,200 universities and colleges. In 2012 it finally received its first dedicated app for iOS devices, and now in 2013, iTunes U has hit another major milestone.

Today Apple has announced that iTunes U has surpassed one billion content downloads. 60 percent of those downloads originate from outside of the US despite American universities like Ohio State subscribing to the service with its 100,000 enrolled students.

In an interview, Ohio State University's Dr. Matthew "Dr. Fus" Stoltzfus said:

With the news that Pandora will be limiting free users to 40 hours of music, apps like TuneIn Radio are beginning to look a lot more appealing to consumers who want a free streaming model. The popular live radio app has just released a new "Trending" feature.

For those of you who are not in the know, TuneIn corrals over 70,000 live radio stations from around the world, and serves them up on your iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The new TuneIn Live feature is being billed as a "universal programming guide" and allows users to easily find what's currently trending on-air, as well as what programs and stations are hot at the moment.

In addition to the new TuneIn live feature, the company has also integrated Google+ into the mix and can now use the social networking site to send your personal notifications of when your favorite shows are live on air.

Samsung's Galaxy S IV is coming, and you have officially been invited to its launch event in New York City on March 14th at 7:00pm US Eastern time. This morning Samsung released an official teaser image that invited everyone down to Times Square to watch the unveiling via a live stream.

If there was ever any doubt about what this event was about, the large number 4 in the center should clear that up for you. The invite reads: "Be the first in the world to experience it!...You can watch Samsung Unpacked via live stream and experience Samsung's new flagship smartphone at Times Square."

It is widely expected that the Galaxy S IV will overtake the iPhone 5 as the most popular smartphone, by sporting a 4.99-inch HD SoLUX LCD and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 clocked to 1.9GHz. Will any of you TweakTown readers head to Times Square for the event? Let us know in the comments below.

EA have announced that they will be building micro-transactions into all of their future games on PC and consoles, with the decision forming amidst the controversy over the micro-transactions in Dead Space 3, which was the first game in the EA-published series to be impacted by micro-transactions. Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen, when speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, said:

It looks like micro-transactions are here to stay, and I'd even be willing to get we'll move toward a future of cheaper or even free-to-play games that are financed from micro-transactions.

It was only a matter of time, but we should expect a PC-like smartphone to be released later this year. At Mobile World Congress, i-mate were showing off something that most people don't seem to have noticed, a new smartphone with a 4.7-inch display but it was what was cranking along inside that was interesting.

The smartphone from i-mate was powered by Intel's "Clover Trail" hardware and the full version of Windows 8 Pro - meaning that the smartphone is capable of running most desktop-based software, which is a huge deal for a smartphone. i-mate's smartphone is called the Intelegent, and could go up for sale later this year for $750. Featuring an Atom processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, the Intelegent would go up against most smartphones and completely win when it comes to its OS.

Backing up the usual specs, we have HSPA and 4G LTE capabilities, and up to 10 hours of talk time. i-mate will sell the phone by itself, or part of a desktop hardware suite for $1600, this suite would include a docking station they call the "hub". Once Intelegent is docked in the hub, the phone can be used with a traditional, wired phone handset, or make video calls. It will also function as a normal desktop PC, which will include a 23-inch touchscreen display, keyboard and mouse which powers an auxiliary wireless tablet with a 10.1-inch, 1080p-capable display.

Game of Thrones is an undeniable hit, so big that it was the most downloaded show of 2012, but how does the director of the show feel being downloaded so many times? David Petrarca, director of Game of Thrones said that you simply shrug your shoulder at piracy, and that illegal downloads don't really matter because your show thrives on cultural buzz.

When talking to a group of panelists at the Perth Writer's Festival over the weekend, the Game of Thrones director said that shows like the HBO smash hit capitalize on the social commentary they create, adding "that's how they survive." Just how many times was the show downloaded? It was averaging roughly 3.9 million downloads per episode in 2012. The closest downloaded show to this was How I Met Your Mother, with around 3 million downloads per episode.

HBO is unique, as the premium cable channel has 26 million US-based subscribers, and 60 million or so across the world. With that amount of subscribers, they can afford to allow illegal downloads as it gets their show some serious press - not just in the normal forms - but socially across Facebook, etc. The director also talked about other huge shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy, saying that while they do well, they can all be consumed whenever, and wherever.

We've been hearing about flexible smartphones and displays, but before we can even imagine them in the consumer space, we need batteries to be flexible and stretchable. Well, it looks like that wait might be getting closer to an end, with researchers announcing the development of such a technology.

Using a process called "ordered unraveling", John A. Rogers from the University of Illinois and Yonggang Huang from Northwestern University say that their battery can be stretched by up to 300% of its original size, all without losing any functionality. Energy storage islands and "serpentine" wire connections are placed in a sheet of polymer. Polymer is flexible and stretchy by default, with the overlapping wiring can be installed without being damaged.

What can we expect in terms of battery life? According to the engineers, their solution performs close to a standard lithium-ion battery of the same physical size. So we're looking at around 8-9 hours, as well as the ability to charge it wirelessly, but the current prototype they're using loses some capacity after just 20 recharges.

If you're a heavy user of Pandora, you won't like this news - the company has announced they're putting a limit on how much music you can listen to through their free app. There's now a 40-hour limit, which was pushed in thanks to the rise in royalty rates that Pandora must pay record companies.

If you'd like to listen to more than 40 hours of music per month, you can choose to subscribe to the Pandora One service. This service gives users unlimited listening, on top of a lack of advertisements. You can either choose this, or pay a one-time $0.99 fee to listen as long as you'd like for the rest of the month. Desktop users still have the ability to listen to unlimited music.

Samsung is set to launch their competition crushing Galaxy S IV in just over two weeks time, but now we have some benchmarks to share with you. It looks like Samsung's upcoming flagship smartphone has enjoyed some leaked benchmark scores, with a result posted to Browsermark's database today.

In raw CPU performance, it completely demolishes the competition - scoring 2710 using Google Chrome 25. The previous champion? Apple's iPhone 5 with 2416 using Safari. Samsung's Galaxy S III LTE model scored 2359. If these results are true, the Galaxy S IV is going to be a true powerhouse of a smartphone, and you can't complain at that.

The other thing to remember is that there won't be much in the form of competition against it, as any phone that would trump it would require even faster internals. Sure, we have the Snapdragon 800, Tegra 4 (and 4i) coming, as well as Samsung's own Exynos 5 Octa, but the Galaxy S IV is going to be here, very soon. Those other SoCs are months away.

Unfortunately for those who missed the Google Glass pre-order, there is really only one other way to get a headset before everyone else: buy one from someone who pre-ordered a set. Since the competition to win a chance to buy a pair ends today, you're basically left waiting for the public release or buying a pre-release product from one of those lucky few who have purchased one already.

One such person put up an auction on Ebay, which has now been pulled. The auction started at $1,500, the sunk price for the headset, though it quickly skyrocketed to over $15,000 before being pulled. It's not clear whether the user pulled the auction or whether Ebay and/or Google had something to do with it.

From the auction's description:

Time to spill the beans on Intel's upcoming CPU and chipset plans, if our tomato sauces are correct. One of our sources tipped us that Haswell will be coming at Computex (June 2013) on the Z87 platform as the mid-range solution (much alike the previous-gen Z77), though this is something that is widely available through Google, and mostly widely known among inner circles as being fact.

More importantly, the source let us know that the next-generation performance range of CPUs will be coming by the end of the year, and not 2014 as previous speculated. This news comes from a source that is very close to the subject.

While we suspect this to be Ivy Bridge-E based, our source wasn't exactly clear and it could end up being Haswell-E, with Ivy Bridge-E being skipped. We do know, however, that the next-gen performance chip will make use of a chipset called X99. A quick Google for "X99" turns up relatively little and basically nothing about an Intel chipset.

Piracy is a big deal pretty much everywhere at this point with everything from Wii games, to smartphone apps being installed without a purchase made. Some companies simply deal with this by threatening legal action or actually filing suit. Tweetbot has came up with a unique method to combat people pirating their relatively cheap app.

Tweetbot is considered by many to be the best iOS Twitter app and, as such, it is pirated a lot. The company has decided to combat this issue by coding recent versions of the app to post an embarrassing tweet to the user's account if their copy of the app has been pirated.

As you can see in the above image, the tweet reads "I've been demoing a pirated copy of @tweetbot and really like it so I'm going to buy a copy." A quick twitter search brought me pages upon pages of users who have this tweet posted to their account. Normally I do not agree with most companies methods of dealing with pirates, but this one is about as funny as it gets.

Render. Rinse. Repeat! That's AMD's new recommended method of hair care. The company could have just very well ushered in a new era of 3D graphics with its new hair processing technique dubbed TressFX. The process showcases more "realistic" and "natural" hair for in game characters.

AMD says that the new technique allows for individual strands of hair to be rendered out, and everything will flow more naturally with unique physics properties and collision detection. Long gone are the days when you have to suffer trough Laura Croft's pony tail bouncing within a seemingly flat plane.

AMD's blog stated:

Over the years we have seen some weird apps pop up in both the Apple App store as well as the Google Play Store, but this one may take the cake. Myshkin Ingawale, a graduate of MIT, has created an app that will analyze your urine and spits out a breakdown of several key parameters that allude to your state of health.

I know what you are thinking and there is no reason to worry. The app works by taking an image of a test strip that was dunked into a cup on urine. Dubbed Uchek It works by taking photos at set intervals and analyzing the color changes on the test strip. By doing this it is able to measure the levels of glucose, bilirubin, proteins, specific gravity, ketones, leukocytes, nitrites, urobilinogen and hematuria present in the urine.

Ingawale says that the app replaces much larger and more expensive machines which can cost between $1K and $10k. Those machines use proprietary test strips that can cost upwards of $100. For $20 Ingawale gives you a packet of test strips, and the app is only a $0.99 purchase in the Apple App Store. An Android version of the app is currently in development with the release date currently unspecified.