Latest News - Page 2999

Intel are set to build a new processor fabrication plant in Ireland, after they received permission from the Irish planning agency An Bord Pleanala. The Ireland fab plant will cost the chipmaker $4 billion, but the plant will be pumping out 14nm processors.

The only roadblock now is Intel management's final decision before construction plans begin. The Ireland fab plant will be a redevelopment of an existing facility in Country Kildare, and has been in the planning stages from as early as 2011. When construction is finished, which will take two years, it will give Intel 245,000 square meters to play with their next-generation 14nm-based processors.

The construction will employ close to 3,500 construction workers, and once the plant is complete, the plant itself will employ 800 full-time staff for chip production.

Based upon Crytek's announcement today, it appears that the THQ bankruptcy hearing was accepted by the judge. Crytek has come out to say that they have acquired the rights to THQ's Homefront intellectual property. This means Crytek will now be able to develop games in the Homefront franchise.

Crytek was actually already working with THQ on a second Homefront game, which it announced back in late 2011. Due to the recent bankruptcy filing by THQ, Crytek decided to buy the rights to the Homefront franchise. They submitted the high bid at the THQ assets auction and have purchased the rights.

Crytek CEO, Cevat Yerli, said: "Since we first reached an agreement to develop Homefront 2, we've been firm believers in the IP and its potential to excite and amaze players. Our cooperation with THQ was always positive and we would like to thank them for all their support over the last two years and express our sympathy to those affected by the recent events at the company."

Well, we were right. The tweet by Twitter's CEO was a tip that they were going to release Vine soon. Today, Twitter has announced the launch of Vine. According to the blog post by Twitter, Vine is "a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos." Twitter hopes the short length of time will inspire creativity.

Vine is available for iOS devices, specifically the iPhone and iPod touch. The app is free and currently available in the App Store. The blog post states that they are currently working on bringing the app to other platforms, meaning we should soon see an app available on Android and possibly Windows Phone, Windows 8, and other devices.

Vine explains the app a bit better in their blog post:

AMD aren't doing so well right now, especially when compared to Intel or Apple's latest financial results, but according to reports, CEO Rory Read has outlined the company's three-phase restructuring goal.

Those restructuring goal will see AMD return to profitability by the second half of this year. Read has said that the return to profitability will take more than one quarter, and will involve a total restructuring of how the company runs its business. The chipmaker will also deliver a new set of powerful products this year, as well as begin the transitioning of the company in order to take advantage of high-growth opportunities in other markets where their IP could provide others will a competitive advantage.

These markets include things like servers, custom silicon, the embedded space and ultra-low-power products such as gaming consoles. Considering AMD have reportedly won contracts to have their products in every single next-gen gaming console, this is a huge, huge uptick for AMD. AMD hopes to collect 20% of their revenue from these 'alternative' markets by the end of the year.

I wasn't originally going to place the 'RumorTT' stamp on this post, because I think we're going to see Apple launch a completely redesigned iOS in the near future, but KitGuru expect Apple will release iOS 7 with the fifth-generation iPad.

The fifth-generation iPad... you read that right. We only saw the release of the third-generation iPad last year, and late last year we saw the release of the fourth-generation iPad. What can we expect from the fifth-gen iPad? Well, a better screen - bigger, expected to jump up to 10 inches. We should see the resolution stay the same, or get bumped up slightly.

A better processor baked in, and hopefully a better form of battery technology is used. A thinner, lighter battery as that is one of the heavier and bulkier components of the iPad right now. What should we expect from iOS 7? Well, that's the best part - everything. Maps was a complete joke with iOS 6 and has been a constant problem for Apple since its release.

I expect Google's 'X Phone' to really shake up the smartphone market, big time. If you didn't know about X Phone, it is Google's most advanced phone, that we don't know anything about.

Right now, anything reported on Google's unreleased and unnamed phone is pure speculation and rumor. We've heard that the X Phone would feature a bendable screen, a ceramic case and advanced gesture recognition technology - just to name a few. Google's X Phone will be the first, 100% "Google phone", where everything in the device will be the work of Google.

The Nexus devices are manufactured by a partner, where we've seen Google work with ASUS on the Nexus 7, LG for the Nexus 4 and Samsung on multiple Nexus devices including the Nexus 10. The X Phone would be completely controlled by Google - inside and out - and would be the result of years of hard work. The latest rumor is that we should see the X Phone unveiled as soon as May.

Google have some amazing services, such as Maps, Search, Gmail, YouTube and more - but how do this translate into power? Or something to brag about? Well, according to ComScore's latest data, Google take out 5 of the top 6 mobile apps in the US.

ComScore's data is from their most recent monthly review of the top iOS and Android apps in the US, which is ranked by unique visitors and has shown the above table where Google completely dominate it. Apple's iTunes is placed 8th, behind five Google mobile apps. Facebook of course is numero uno, and was the only non-Google app to enter the top six.

Apple's iTunes app was the one and only from the company to even enter the top ten, and it was ranked 8th with 46 million unique visitors per month.

Microsoft is looking to bring back users by toying with their emotions in this latest appeal:

The video clearly plays upon the current generation's nostalgia for the '90s. I've seen plenty of posts from my friends on Facebook saying "Like this if you're a '90s kid" and the like, so I have a feeling this appeal may actually work well for Microsoft. What are your thoughts on the ad? Will it bring you back to Internet Explorer?

Microsoft announced the ad on their blog:

Google's semi-annual Transparency Report has been updated today and the new data shows that requests for data from the search giant continue to increase. The US government leads the way in requesting data from Google. In fact, the amount of data requests as increased by more than 70 percent since 2009.

For the period from July to December, Google received 21,389 requests for information about 33,634 users. The United States government led the charge with over 8,000 requests for information that encompassed almost 15,000 user accounts. 88 percent of these requests had at least some data produced.

India was the next highest on the list, but only requested about 25 percent of what the US did. They made 2,400 requests about roughly 4,000 users. France, Germany, UK, and Brazil round out the list of governments who put in more than 1,000 user data requests.

Some bad news, at least for the companies involved, has come out thanks to a court case brought against Apple and Google by five workers. The case alleges that they are due lost wages as the companies involved tried keeping wages down by agreeing to not poach employees from each other.

Apparently, this non-poaching agreement extends beyond Google and Apple to the likes of Intel, Adobe, Pixar, and others. Judge Koh, made famous by the on-going Apple vs Samsung battle, is overseeing this court battle. This could end up being very bad for the companies involved, with the plaintiffs arguing that the damages could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

For instance, an e-mail sent to Eric Schmidt by Steve Jobs: "Eric, I am told that Googles new cell phone software group is relentlessly recruiting in our iPod group. If this is indeed true, can you put a stop to it? Thanks, Steve." Another e-mail, this one sent by Paul Otellini of Intel, reads, "we have nothing signed. We have a handshake 'no-recruit' between eric and myself. I would not like this broadly known."

Gaming studio THQ announced in open court today that the company is being broken apart and its major gaming titles will be getting sold off to other studios. While the bankruptcy hearing hasn't officially been accepted by the judge, the ruling seems like it should be accepted, if the judge's comments are anything to go off of.

"I wasn't sure it was going to work, but I'm glad it did" Judge Marry F. Walrath said. The proposed sales are as follows:

Not all of THQ's assets have been sold yet, but THQ is continuing to look for buyers. If approved, the sales should close this week. Farrell and Rubin expect that most employees will be employed by the new owners, but wouldn't go as far as to promise anything. The full letter sent out to employees by Brian Farrell, Chief Executive Officer of THQ, and Jason Rubin, President of THQ, can be read below:

The latest rumor from the Samsung rumor mill is that the Galaxy S4 is coming in April after a March announcement. Part of this rumor also details the naming and suggests that the next Galaxy S device might not be called the S4. The reasoning behind this is that Asian cultures believe the number four to be unlucky.

Because of this, many companies skip releasing a device with a four in the name. 'Four' in Asian languages is pronounced in a similar way as "death," hence why people believe it to be unlucky. Previously, companies have replaced the word "four" with the letter F, so we could see ourselves getting a Galaxy SF.

The rumor places the announcement of the next Galaxy device as roughly a month before the device releases, so sometime in March. The device is said to go on sale between April 15 and April 19. The timing is just about right for the S3 successor to make its debut, so I would give this rumor a little bit of credence. As with all rumors, nothing is confirmed until Samsung comes out and confirms it.

Update: Let's have a bit of fun with the numbers provided to us by Apple. Apple sold roughly 6 iPhones per second during the quarter and roughly 3 iPads per second. That's an impressive feat by itself. Imagine the manufacturing that had to go into that to supply that many iPads and iPhones per second. Wow.

Apple's press release has just hit the webs. Results of $54.5 billion for the quarter makes it a record. Another record, Apple posted a net profit of $13.1 billion. Along with that, Apple announced that 47.8 million iPhones were sold, 22.9 million iPads were sold, 4.1 million Macs sold, and 12.7 iPods sold.

"We're thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world."

Want to get a sneak peak at the upcoming Crysis 3 game? Well, Crytek and EA are giving everyone just that opportunity by offering an open beta of the multiplayer version of Crysis 3. Starting January 29, PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 users will be able to participate in the beta.

It will feature two beta multiplayer modes: Hunter and Crash Site. The Hunter game mode is best described by the Crysis team: "This multiplayer game mode is all about the survival of the fittest. There are two teams, initially comprised of two permanently cloaked "Hunters", and up to fourteen CELL troopers awaiting extraction. Each trooper slain respawns on the Hunter team to prey on their former allies, building to a frenetic climax. If any of the troopers survive the round, the hunters lose. Whichever way you play, Hunter Mode delivers a heart-pounding test of strategy and survival."

Mega, the recently launched brainchild of the infamous Kim Dotcom, has already climbed to the ranks of the top 150 sites on the internet. In just five days, the file sharing website has eclipsed rivals RapidShare and Dropbox according to Alexa rankings, a service which ranks websites by size from users who install its browser toolbar.

In a tweet that simply read "141", Dotcom announced the sites entry into the 150 club. The numbers are based on website ranking service Alexa, where Mega is still in the 7,000 range if you go by the three month stats, but if you track the site on a seven day basis, Mega has beat out its major rivals in terms of website traffic.

The joy in the Mega camp is not everlasting though as allegations arise that the site's encryption service is not as secure as they would like us to think. The issues arise with Javascript and a "poorly" created random entropy for the encryption keys. In true fashion, Dotcom addressed the issue by tweeting that a contest with cash prize will be held soon, and saying "Let's see what you got". It's unclear if Mega's massive website traffic will continue after news agencies around the world move onto other topics.

Well, this was a little unexpected, but could also turn out quite amazing for Microsoft. The latest talk is that the Redmond-based software giant is in discussions with Silver Lake Partners and Dell's CEO to invest between $1 billion and $3 billion in a leveraged buyout of Dell.

The news comes from "sources close to the matter" talking with CNBC. The rumor does make sense as Microsoft is slowly transitioning toward a hardware company after being a full-on software company for all these years. This move could see Microsoft directly compete with Apple in both hardware and software, without having to build it from the ground up, they'd have a huge start acquiring Dell.

Talks between Silver Lake Partners and the special committee for Dell's shareholders are set to continue, and we should hear of a deal being reached by the end of the week.

Q4 is usually good for most companies, as the holidays are an extremely busy time of the year for most businesses. Verizon have had a stellar Q4, where they've announced they activated 9.8 million smartphones during the quarter.

Better yet, out of those 9.8 million, 7.3 million of them were LTE-capable. Breaking the numbers down once more, we find that 6.2 million activations were iPhone's and around half of them were LTE-capable meaning they were the latest iPhone 5.

In the same three-month period, Verizon added 2.2 million more subscribers, 144,000 new FiOS Internet subscribers and 134,000 FiOS video subscribers. Revenues were hitting $30 billion for the quarter, which is up 5.7% from twelve months ago and $115.8 billion for the entire fiscal year. Verizon were able to achieve a total return of 13.2% to shareholders last year.

A CPU has popped up on Ebay that the seller claims is either Ivy Bridge EP or Haswell EP. The seller says that it fits in his LGA 2011 motherboard, though the system does not boot up. Ivy Bridge EP is said to be a drop-in upgrade to LGA 2011 motherboards, though they will need an update for the BIOS before it will work.

From the post:

Big news out of Intel today. They are looking to end their desktop motherboard business over the next 3 years. Intel will continue to provide chipsets for third-party manufacturers, but will no longer be producing desktop motherboards. This announcement isn't too surprising, though it was a bit unexpected.

The Intel staff will go to different projects, such as developing the NUC boards and reference boards. Reference boards are often the basis of many third-party designs. Intel plans to stop developing desktop motherboards after the Haswell launch, though all Intel boards will still carry a full warranty and will continue to be supported by Intel.

The socketed CPU design will continue to be available past Broadwell in 2014, though the cadence of release is said to be slower than what we are currently used to. Third-party motherboards should continue to be the high-quality specimens that most of us have come to love.

A new rumor is saying that NVIDIA is readying a GK110-based GeForce Titan card to go toe-to-toe with the upcoming AMD HD 8000 series of GPUs. The new card would consist of a single GPU die and would have performance between the current GTX 680 and GTX 690, which is two GTX 680 dies on one card.

The move is likely to steal some thunder from AMD, who will try to take the performance crown back from NVIDIA. Several sources have said the card will materialize late next month with a price tag of $899. The name comes from the Titan supercomputer, which features 18,688 nodes utilizing NVIDIA's Tesla K20X GPU.

The GK110 die powers NVIDIA's enterprise Tesla video cards. The final die configuration will feature 2688 CUDA cores, an impressive number and over 1000 more than the GTX 680. Of course, this is all a rumor, though a lot of it does make sense. The card is likely utilizing chips that weren't quite up to par with the other Tesla chips as these cards have one SMX unit disabled.