Latest News - Page 3013

Oh how I'd love to go back in time and have Google and Wikipedia available when I was in school - when I reached high school we were only just receiving proper PCs and basic access to the Internet through dual ISDN connections - kids of today are so spoilt.

Well, American kids use modern tools to help write assignments and papers, with the Pew Internet and American Life Project conducing a survey of over 2400 middle school and high school teachers that shows 94% of teachers saying their students were "very likely" to use Google for research.

Wikipedia comes in with 75% of students using the great research tool. Just 18% of teachers said their students were to use textbooks, and just 12% said their students were very likely to use other kinds of printed books.

I've said that Apple should bring their production to the US, and it looks like they read my posts here at TweakTown - probably not, but this is great to see. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the news during an interview with Rock Center, that they will be indeed bringing some Mac production to the United States:

At the moment it's not known which Mac products will be manufactured in the US, but there have been rumbles of it being the iMac as some of the current iMacs have "Assembled in USA" inscribed in the back of them.

During the interview with Brian Williams, Cook said "we've been working for years on doing more and more in the United States". Cook noted during the interview that Apple are spending around $100 million in the US production adventure:

YouTube have decided to put their best dress on going into the holidays, offering up new features that are designed to make it easier for users to subscribe and watch channels through the site. YouTube have pushed out a new Guide feature, which reaches out to multiple devies. The site have also unveiled a new look for the site, which I'm personally not fond of.

The video sharing site have also made it easier for people to subscribe and use channel subscriptions by adding the Guide to the homepage, something that was rolled out five years ago now - but now in a better position to users. When adding subscriptions to your Guide, it will display videos related to things you've seen before. The Guide will pass through all of your YouTube-enabled devices, be it the iPhone, iPad, PlayStation 3, Google TV and Android-based devices.

Each month YouTube offer up 4 billion hours of videos - an astounding number. Within the last twelve months, the number of users subscribing to channels has doubled, with the company estimating that an additional 30% rise is to be expected. This is why YouTube are concentrating more on subscribers, as the expansion has been huge.

Social networks can be dangerous for powerful people, with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings possibly facing the Securities and Exchange Commission over a statement he posted to social networking site, Facebook.

Rewinding back to July, Hastings' Facebook page announced that Netflix passed a billion hours of streaming for the month of June - the first time that Netflix has ever done that, ever. This simple post from Hastings could have violated regulations in regards to fair disclosure, the SEC has reportedly told Netflix.

Bloomberg has reported that Hastings' post could've been seen by his 200,000 followers. The SEC has said that the post could constitute selective disclosure of material information, which could justify a civil claim. Netflix said in a statement that the fact that they had previously stated they were closing in on a billion hours of streaming in June. On top of this, they've said that the billion-hour total is not "material" to investors. Netflix remains "optimistic that this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC's review process".

NVIDIA announced their "GeForce Experience" earlier this year, and have now released a beta that will allow the first 10,000 people to register to get their hands on it. After the signups have closed, NVIDIA will monitor the user feedback and take out any of the big bugs.

The GeForce Experience only supports 32 games at the moment, and just the Fermi- and Kepler-based NVIDIA GPUs. More games will be added to the supported list in the coming weeks. If you don't know what the GeForce Experience offers, it will help people who don't optimize their games for their specific hardware. Enthusiasts, like myself and I'm sure many others reading this, will sit there and optimize their graphics settings in their games to get the best performance, or quality.

Everyone is different - some people like a mix of medium/high graphics and a steady 60fps or 120fps minimum (that would be me). There are others who want the maximum eye candy, and will find no problem running at 30fps or lower. NVIDIA's software will help those who don't want to sit there adjusting sliders and settings, with the software eventually being capable of accessing NVIDIA's cloud-based supercomputers that will work out, and then download the best in-game settings for your particular PC.

Spotify talked up their subscriber numbers a little earlier on today, and at the same time we saw the CEO and founder of Spotify, Daniel Ek, noting that members love the service when they know what they want to listen to, but if users are looking for something new - Spotify isn't that great.

In order to work around this, Spotify are set to unveil a new Discovery section which will help people find new music that they might be interested in listening to based on their listening habits. A new Collection feature will also be released, which will let listeners bundle all of their music into a single space versus having multiple playlists. Ek said that a third of all playlists on Spotify are just albums that people have saved - and that's true, I'm one of those people.

Ek added that the Collection view is all about making the experience easier for the listener to save music any way that they want. The final feature is Follow, which will facilitate friends or celebrities. Once you've followed someone, the music that they listen to and the playlists that they compile will display in the soon-to-be-released Discovery section.

I'm an Australian, but keep up as much as I can with the fringe areas of US politics and the debt that the world has. We know that the US is in over their heads in debt, but just how much? Sure, $1 billion sounds like a lot - but I think most people have lost sight of just how much these billions, and trillions mean.

This could turn into a long winded whinge session about not only the state of the US political system, but the entire world's financial system. Instead, we'll show you a visualization from Demonocracyinfo of the current US debt. Currently, the money owed by the US government is larger than the size of the economy itself. The current debt ceiling is set at $16.394 trillion and the US are getting close to that mark with just a few weeks until they hit the "fiscal cliff" I'm sure you've heard about.

What did you think of the video? At first, I thought - oh that's not too bad, millions don't look like that much - then the billions begin. Once that's over and the shock sets in, you see the entire federal debt, and it's a scary number.

Crysis 3 is incoming in just a couple of months and to get ready for the release, Crytek has teamed up with filmmaker Albert Hughes. Hughes will produce an online video series that draws inspiration from the Seven Wonders of Crysis 3. The show is aptly named The 7 Wonders of Crysis 3.

The videos will help to set some background, as well as the setting, for the upcoming Crysis 3 game. Viewers will catch a glimpse of the game's graphics, weapons, enemies, and gameplay features. Hughes is known for directly films such as Dead Presidents, From Hell, and Book of Eli, but his roll in the Crysis 3 videos is a bit more expansive.

He has helped with the scripts, storyboards, and shot plans. The nice thing about this is that the video will be using the game engine, so it will be exactly what players can expect when they hop in the game in February.

The FTC is widely expected to announce updates to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the coming weeks. For those who don't know, COPPA is a law that requires online companies to gain a parent's permission before obtaining and storing personal information of his or her child.

The law was originally passed in 1998 and implemented in 2000 and the internet has advanced and changed by leaps and bounds since then. Princeton Research Associates International conducted a survey over two weeks in November. It consisted of 2,000 adults being asked questions, and the results highlight the fact that most people support laws like COPPA.

In fact, 90 percent agreed with the COPPA law, when asked. 91 percent believed that advertisers should be prevented from identifying a minor's location via their cellular device. 80 percent of adults were against websites collecting activity reports of children online, even when said reports are anonymous.

Intel is getting a lot of press this morning. The latest in the line of news regarding the big blue chip maker is that Intel is completely denying rumors that they are heading to a BGA-only, socketless design for Broadwell and beyond. Intel says that they will support socketed CPUs for the "foreseeable future."

Of course, that's a bit vague, and it's vague on purpose. This way they can recant their statement later if they do decide to go to BGA only by saying it was beyond the foreseeable future. However, the good news here is that the rumor of Broadwell being BGA only should be completely dispelled.

"Intel remains committed to the growing desktop enthusiast and channel markets, and will continue to offer socketed parts in the LGA package for the foreseeable future for our customers and the Enthusiast DIY market," Intel spokesman Daniel Snyder told Maximum PC. "However, Intel cannot comment on specific long-term product roadmap plans at this time, but will disclose more details later per our normal communication process."

VR-Zone China got their hands on what appears to be a legitimate leaked road map detailing Intel's rumored lower power Ivy Bridge CPUs. The new processors are expected to come in the first quarter of 2013, so we may even see a showing of the new processors at Intel's CES booth or press conference.

Let's start with the bottom chip, as seen above. It will come with the Pentium branding and will feature a max TDP of 10W. Sporting 2 cores and 2 threads, the model will not make use of Turbo Boost or HyperThreading and it only features 2MB of L3 cache. The included graphics are just "Intel HD Graphics."

Moving up the line, they have one Core i3 offering in the form of the i3-3229Y, which is a 13W TDP part. It will feature HyperThreading and will come in a dual-core model clocked at 1.4GHz. One of the two i5 offerings, the i5-3339Y, is a dual-core, HyperThreading part that comes clocked at 1.5GHz, with a max Turbo Boost of 2GHz.

TIME Magazine have done a "Top 10 Everything of 2012", and within this, is the "Top 10 Gadgets of 2012". Taking out the number two spot is the Nintendo Wii U, which has only been out for a couple of weeks.

I find this great for Nintendo, but worrying for their credibility. Have TIME been using this for 6 months? Can you really don something with "second-best gadget of 2012" when there are only a handful of games, problems with updates, and more? I guess so. This is what they had to say:

One of the best features of Android 4.1 and 4.2 Jelly Bean is Google Now - I loved it in my reviews of the mobile OS, but it has really grown into a powerful tool. I use it on the daily - and it has been updated today with some new and improved features.

First up, Google Now has the ability to tell you the weather at you destination, if you were travelling, before you even step out of the house. Boarding passes will also display automatically when you arrive at the airport - but are exclusive to United Airlines for now, with Google saying they'll be adding more airlines in the future.

The updated Google Now features a list of events that are happening near you when you arrive at your destination, and the final update includes suggestions of websites for you to look at when researching things to do as well as learning about specific pieces while you're out - using Google Goggles. Google have rejigged the Voice Search, where you can now ask "What's this song" and it will try its hardest to find it for you. I tried it with it by saying "What's this song" and all it would come up with is "What is this song" and display results for "this song" - all while I was bopping to Gangnam Style.

I've labelled this as a 'RumorTT' post, but in case you read past that - here's some salt, too. According to an Ingram Micro source, OS giant Microsoft could be forced to ask retailers and distributors to move a tonne of their Surface stock, which is said to be around three to five million units, that have all been rejected by consumers.

According to the source, Microsoft may be forced to pull a "HP" and sell millions of units at "ridiculously" low prices. If you remember, back in August last year, HP dumped thousands of their poorly received TouchPad's for just $99. Ingram Micro is a distributor of Microsoft products, and have said that the company are looking at multiple options to get the stock flowing.

What gives this rumor more credit is that Microsoft have been utterly silent on sales numbers for Surface, but on the same day Surface was unleashed to the world, Windows 8 was, too. Microsoft have been quick to talk up the Windows 8 numbers - so why not Surface? Unless it's not doing well, you'd want to rub it in your competitors' faces, wouldn't you? Analysts are claiming that if Microsoft were capable of manufacturing between three to five million units to sell in Q4 2012, they're going to have between two to four million left by the years end.

With supply constraints on the iPhone 5 finally easing for Apple Inc. (AAPL), there's no better time than now to debut the iPhone 5 to more than 50 additional markets throughout this month. With shipping delays easing from four weeks to just 2-4 business days, Apple could be on target for their best quarter, ever.

Suppliers are estimating that Apple could sell 45 million iPhone 5's in the Q4 2012 period alone - yes, 45 million. The news comes from DigiTimes' sources within the Apple supply chain, which is higher than the previous estimates of 40 million units.

These sources are some of the international wireless chipset suppliers, who are claiming the pull-in orders from Apple are going up. With some of the chipset suppliers revealing that their sales are likely to hit record highs in their fourth quarters. DigiTimes' sources have said "Taiwan-based IC backend service providers including Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), Adentec and STATS ChipPAC arre also expected to perform better than expected in the fourth quarter, buoyed by orders from chipset vendors".

I'm sure you didn't see this one coming, did you? Neither did I, don't worry. Spanish site BitDreams.se has posted what they are claiming to be the specs on AMD's upcoming next-generation dual-GPU, the Radeon HD 8990.

The leak reports that we should expect the HD 8990 in Q2 2013, meaning it is not far away at all. The leaked roadmap unveils that there are two Radeon HD 8800 series GPUs to be shipped this quarter, and with just weeks left, if it did happen, it's most likely going to be a paper launch - if it happens at all.

Now that we've got the lower-end gear out of the way, let's get straight to that succulent GPU meat - the Radeon HD 8990 "Venus XTX" which will see two Radeon HD 8970s bound onto the single GPU. The card is teased as sporting a whopping 5.1 billion transistors, 5210 stream processors and 160 texture units per core. The HD 8990 is listed as featuring 48 ROPs per core, and two 384-bit buses. Memory should reach the dizzying heights of between 6GB and 12GB and should come factory clocked at 1250MHz. The GPU cores should be set at 950MHz if the leaked roadmap holds truth to it.

There is currently a summit going on Dubai, The World Conference on International Telecommunications, to be specific, that is discussing how the internet should move forward. The details of the talks are whether or not governments should take more control over the internet, or if the UN should possibly take it over.

The United States Congress has done at least one thing correctly by passing a resolution opposing both of the options being considered. The House, today, passed the Senate resolution that calls on the US government to oppose UN control. "The 193 member countries of the United Nations are gathered to consider whether to apply to the Internet a regulatory regime that the International Telecommunications Union created in the 1980s for old-fashioned telephone service," Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said on the House floor.

"I think that we are all very, very proud that there is not only bipartisan, but bicameral support underlying this resolution, and there is complete support across the Executive Branch of our government," Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) said. "In other words, the United States of America is totally unified on this issue of an open structure, a multi-stakeholder approach that has guided the Internet over the last two decades."

It seems as though Apple's stock just isn't catching a break, and that's caused one trader to get into some hot water. David Miller, a previous trader for Rochdale Securities, Stamford, was just arrested today over claims that he committed wire fraud back in October.

The FBI say that Miller purchased 1.625 million shares of Apple stock, worth roughly $1 billion, on October 25, the day Apple was due to report its quarterly earnings. Now, that's all perfectly legal, except for the fact that he used the brokerage's money. He expected stock prices to increase and was planning to pocket the profit.

As we all know, Apple stock hasn't been doing the best lately, and October 25 was no different. Stock prices decreased and his employer lost roughly $5 million over the trade. He explained it away as an honest mistake, saying he meant to purchase 1,625 shares, not the 1,625,000 shares that were purchased.

It sucks when you set something down and then can't find it. It seems to be happening to me more and more each and every day. Well, I must not be alone, as a new technology is looking to put an end to my searching. Instead, I'll be able to pull out my smartphone and track down the lost item--at least get pretty close to it, anyway.

The StickNFind, seen above, is a small, Bluetooth-powered sticker that helps you track down items that you have misplaced. At about the size of a US quarter, the stickers are small, yet the battery life is said to be almost one whole year. The stickers pair with a smartphone app using Bluetooth and have a range of about 100 feet.

The app shows you how far away the item is and, with a tap on the screen, can cause the sticker to light up and buzz. This is another one of those crowd-funded technologies. They're currently raising funds on Indiegogo and are already at $105,752, which is beyond their $70,000 goal. On the campaign, they detail several cool and unique ways of taking advantage of the stickers. You should check it out and consider pre-ordering a set.

The times are changing and what better way to illustrate this than by telling you how many cyber attacks the Navy sees every hour? The number, by the way, is 110,000, at least according to HP. HP should know, too, as they run the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) and protect it from intruders.

The HP's Discover event in Frankfurt, Mike Nefkens, head of enterprise services at HP, told V3, "For the US Navy we provide the network for 800,000 men and woman in 2,000 locations around the world, protecting them against 110,000 cyber attacks every hour. This means the attacks average out at about 1,833 per minute or 30 every second."

Wow. Let me grab a calculator. 24 * 365 * 110,000 = 963,600,000. That works out to 963 million attacks every year. That's an incredible number and really illustrates that our nation needs to secure its IT infrastructure more than anything else.