Latest News - Page 3021

The purple haze appears to be a phenomenon with most high-end smartphone cameras, not just something limited to the iPhone 5 and a few others. The latest device to join the purple haze party is Google's recently released Nexus 4 smartphone, which is selling quite well, if you hadn't heard the news.

As you can see in the picture above, the purple haze affects this brand new device just as much as the others. It only shows up in a few different lighting scenarios, so people should try to avoid these few conditions that will lead to the purple haze. Mainly, avoid shooting towards bright lights that are just out of frame.

The current thought regarding the issue is that the hard crystals that are used as lenses impart the purple hue because they are not perfectly clear. When the light comes roughly straight through, it doesn't present a problem, but as it reaches the outer parts of the lens, the purple color becomes apparent. Of course, this is only a theory.

People buying the WiiU might be upset that they must basically be in the same room as the WiiU to use the WiiU GamePad. While the recommended usage distance is in fact 26 feet, the designers of the wireless chipset used in the tablet say that it is capable of much, much more, but Nintendo wanted to be sure they wouldn't be sued by someone trying to use it too far away.

Ultimately, the range comes down to the amount of wireless interference present in the installation location. If you're in an apartment building in New York City, you'll likely have much less range than someone out in the middle of nowhere, a location where not even cell phones get reception.

In the latter situation, Dino Bekis, senior director of Wireless Connectivity at Boradcom has said that people could likely get up to 100 feet of range. It also depends on what your house is composed of and different factors. The bottom line is that Nintendo went pretty conservative on the number to ensure that all users would receive a decent experience.

Microsoft is celebrating its Xbox Live 10-year anniversary this month as it was officially launched back in November 15, 2002, but Sony has hijacked their party, popped their festive balloons and punched every celebratory cake in sight with its news of updated sales figures for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Move controller.

Sony has announced today its PlayStation 3 has reached a total of 70 million units sold worldwide since its debut back in November of 2006, one year after the Xbox 360 was made available. Even with a one-year head start, Sony has caught up with Microsoft's Xbox 360 as they reached their 70 million units sold worldwide mark just last month. Seeing how Microsoft has always struggled selling its Xbox 360 in Japan, I'm sure Sony's dominance of the region helped reach today's goal.

Sony also announced its PlayStation Move controller has hit the 15 million units sold worldwide mark two years after its debut in 2010, which currently has over 400 titles supporting it.

The wireless service here in the U.S. is absolutely abysmal as customers and handset manufacturers are caught in a whirlwind of phone exclusivity, price increases and data throttling across the majority of our wireless networks. Something needs to change soon, and hopefully, that change could be a new wireless service between Google and Dish Network if recent reports turn out to be a true.

According to the WSJ, Google and Dish Network have been in talks over possibly partnering up to create their own wireless service. As of now, the talks are in their very early stages as Google currently isn't the only company Dish Network is in talks with, but seeing as Google has been moving ahead with its Google Fiber, it would be interesting to see the company also deliver a wireless network to its potential customers.

If the plan works out and Google and Dish Network partner up to provide a wireless network, it would be interesting to see what types of devices will be supported within the network. Android devices would certainly be a no-brainer, but I'm curious to see if iOS devices like the iPhone or iPad will be invited into the party or if it will be an Android-only network.

Apple's attempt at supplying its own Maps application could be considered a complete disaster as not only did it create an uproar within the iOS community, but it became such a problem, Apple had to issue a public apology, even going as far as recommending alternatives within its own App Store. iOS users who updated to iOS 6 and have longed for the days when Google Maps was made available as a standalone application will soon have their day as it's being reported Google Maps for iOS is very close to being released.

According to the WSJ, Google has released a "test version" of its Google Maps iOS application to a limited number of people outside of the company. This release could indicate a near-final version of Google Maps for iOS is much closer than we all expected, which hopefully means we could be hearing of it heading into Apple's approval process soon.

Hopefully Apple will expedite the process of Google's Maps application as it must know by now just how much people hate its own Maps application. I understand Apple has been trying to rule the world just as hard as Google has been, but in the world of map applications, Apple just needs to admit defeat and let the pros guide me to the nearest Chipotle without ending up in the Hudson River.

With the Nintendo Wii U getting ready to launch this Sunday, Nintendo chose today to announce its TVii and all streaming video services will be delayed weeks after the launch of the console.

In a press release sent out today, Nintendo indirectly announced the delays through the description of the TVii and video-on-demand services.

Here's the description Nintendo sent out for the Nintendo TVii:

Earlier today we had HP exec slamming Microsoft's first roll out into the tablet world with their Surface tablet, and now we have Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer taking a few swings at Android and iOS - why can't we all just get along?

Ballmer had a discussion with LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman at a Churchill Club event, where they talked about a variety of tech-related topics. One of the topics included during the talk were Ballmer's comments on the top players in the mobile industry. Ballmer said that Google's mobile OS, Android, was a little "wild", saying that compatibility issues and vulnerability to malware as two serious issues.

The talk turned to Apple, where Ballmer noted that the Cupertino-based iPhone maker have tight control over their system, with prices being quite high. Ballmer pointed out the fact that iPhones have a $1,000 MSRP in Russia. Because we all know that the Russian market is just oh-so-important. Ballmer then started talking about how to get a premium product in a more "relaxed ecosystem" without paying a high price for this luxury.

Earlier today we posted news that the Unity 4.0 engine had been released, but now there's a short CG animated film from Passion Pictures called "The Butterfly Effect", based on the engine.

The CG short is incredible, with the engine pushing out some seriously slick animation. The story is of a guy who drags himself out of bed to go to the corner store in San Francisco to buy some milk and from there, it gets incredibly destructive. A great video.

The engine looks incredibly powerful, and I would love to see a AAA game based on the title. Imagine a next-gen game powered by this engine, PC-exclusive. It would be incredible. What did you think of The Butterfly Effect? Leave a comment!

Google have just announced that they're investing $75 million into a 50mW wind farm in Rippey, which is around an hour outside of Des Moines. This latest investment sees the Mountain View-based company's total investment into renewable energy at "more than $990 million", edging close to that magical $1 billion mark.

The Rippey-based project is being done by RPM access, who are estimated to produce enough energy to power over 15,000 Iowa homes thanks to the turbines produced in Nordex USA. Google reiterate that both company's are based in the US, enforcing that Google are also an American company. Google are pushing for renewable energy in Iowa as they have a data center in Council Bluffs, and have been pumping money into the area since they opened the data center five years ago:

If you haven't heard about Android 4.2 Jelly Bean's "Daydreams", well, they're a screensaver-like app that runs whenever your device is docked, or charging. There's a handful included with the stock Android 4.2, but there's a hidden one, too - it's unlockable if you access the Jelly Bean "Easter Egg" animation.

Tapping several times on the Android version number under Settings, then About Phone will display a large Jelly Bean smiley face. Press down on this for a few seconds and you'll be prompted with a screen filled with even more delicious-looking jelly beans.

Once you've done this, the "BeanFlinger" Daydream will be unlocked. You can find BeanFlinger under Settings, Display, Daydreams. This unlocking should work on any Android 4.2-based device that supports Daydreams.

I was lucky enough to get in and get a Nexus 4 in Australia within 20 minutes, which felt like no effort at all - although my delivery was meant to arrive yesterday, I rang FedEx and they've said that there was a stuff up with Google, and it has been delayed in China - boo. Now I won't get my Nexus 4 until next week - #firstworldproblems.

Well, those not lucky enough to score a Nexus 4 will have to wait another few weeks, as the Mountain View-based search giant have been sending out emails to those who backordered a Nexus 4, telling them to expect a Nexus 4 to ship out "within three weeks". Google have decided to be a great company here, and in order to stem the pain of not scoring a Nexus 4 with the first batch, they're waiving shipping charges and will allow consumers to cancel their stock if they find a Nexus 4 at a local T-Mobile dealer.

The email from Google:

Samsung only talked about volume production of their uber-fast eMMC memory chips in August, just two months ago, and are already standing proud with their next-generation of hardware. Pushing 20nm to the side, the South Korean giant is moving to 10nm, with the new 64GB eMMC Pro Class 200 sporting a 20% smaller physical footprint.

Not only is it smaller, but Samsung are claiming it includes 30% advantages in both performance and manufacturing productivity. The previous 20nm-based flash memory chips only begun taking advantage of JEDEC's eMMC 4.5 interface in August, but Samsung are hoping to talk to JEDEC about creating a new standard that can handle this new design.

Write speeds top out at 2,000 IOPS, with read speeds of 5,000 IOPS - beating the 1,500 and 3,000 for write/read, respectively, on the older hardware. Bandwidth reaches 260MB/sec read, 50MB/sec write. The new 10nm-based flash memory chips went into production last month and are set to be baked into smart devies in the near future.

As much as I've enjoyed using Spotify on a daily basis, one thing that it's been missing has been a web-based music application allowing me, and other users around the world, to log in to their account and instantly access their music, playlists and radio station preferences no matter where they go. But today, Spotify has announced that it's planning to roll out a browser-based application that will do just that in the coming months.

According to reports, the web application will retain much of what is currently available in the desktop versions including search, Radio, Spotify's "What's new" section and management of playlists. Assuming Spotify is planning on making everything available from its desktop application to the web, we can expect Spotify's Radio feature to be free for all users, with banner and audio ads removed for premium members.

Spotify's web-based music player is currently in beta, but the company plans on rolling it out to everyone over the next couple of months. The company had the following to share in regards with today's news:

Throughout the years of going to movie theaters, I've experienced pretty much every kind of rude behavior a person can experience including witnessing a group of pre-teens urinating on the movie screen. But the not-so recent trend of moviegoers who absolutely need to be on their cell phones during a movie is especially annoying as their phone screens always distract me no matter how much they try to conceal their device. If a new program from Cinemark takes off, moviegoers may finally learn to keep their phones in their pockets or purses for the duration of the film.

Cinemark has announced a new program called CineMode which is an application that will keep track of a moviegoers cell phone usage during a film. When the application is launched, CineMode will dim the users' cell phone screen and ask them to set their phone to vibrate. If the user is able to keep their mitts off their phone for the duration of the film, they will be presented with a digital coupon that can be redeemed for a discount on a future movie at a Cinemark theater.

I'm already well aware texting in the movie theater will never go away as there are too many self-centered people in the world who absolutely need to be connected to their phones at all times, but I'm hoping the lure of a digital coupon for a future movie will be enough to keep their hands of their phones for at least an hour.

Apple just can't catch a break lately - iPhone 5s are experiencing issues, their stock is dropping like its not hot, and now there's rumors circling that Apple's previous warnings of the new iMac model would see "significant shortages", may actually push the release of the new Retina-sporting iMacs into 2013.

Apple currently states on their US site that the new 21.5-inch iMac will be released later this month, with the 27-inch model coming next month. But, if the rumors are actually true, we could see a delay of the new iMac in relation to Apple's new production method which has been dubbed "friction-stir welding".

This method utilizes intense heat and pressure, which is used to create an even more seamless join than previous techniques used. We've heard about delays, with Apple CEO Tim Cook stating in a conference call with analysts that the new iMac would see "significant shortages" but didn't state why, but continued to expect that the new Retina iMacs would make their original November and December delivery dates.

One would think this rule would've been enforced on day-one, but another NASA employee's laptop was stolen from a locked car two weeks ago, containing "personally identifiable information". Officials are now concerned that NASA workers are at risk of identity theft.

The laptop's HDD that was stolen wasn't encrypted, and no top of that, neither were the included sensitive documents. The theft is being used as a wake up call for NASA to severely increase security standards on employees' laptops. This isn't the first leak, as in March of 2011 a laptop was stolen which contained - wait for it - control codes for the damn International Space Station and since, the space agency hasn't beefed up security, until now.

NASA Inspector General, Paul Martin, has told Congress that from April 2009 to April 2011 - a two-year period - that an estimated 48 laptops and mobile devices had been lost or stolen, and worse, just 1% of agency devices were encrypted. Associate deputy administrator Richard Keegan Jr. has, effective immediately, required that "no NASA-issued laptops containing sensitive information can be removed from a NASA facility unless whole disk encryption software is enabled".

Thought your current single 3TB HDD was big enough? Well, if researchers out of the University of Texas have anything to do with it, you could see a huge spike in storage capacity of HDDs with a new technique they're working on.

The research is being led by C. Grant Willson, professor of chemistry, biochemistry and engineering at UT, where the team have found a way to use self-organizing substances called block copolymers to help isolate a disk's magnetic dots, allowing them to be closer together without becoming unstable. Current drives write ones and zeroes as magnetic dots across a metal disk.

The closer these dots are together, the more data that can be crammed into the same area. But, with current production methods, these dots can't get much denser than around a terabit of information per square inch, or else their magnetic fields interfere with each other, and would lead them to randomly flip states. The new technique involving block copolymers, a UT post reads:

The second trailer to Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V is here, and boy what a trailer. It shows off that the super-huge open-world game is set to be just as large as they've stated it to be - with the game world bigger than Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV and San Andreas, combined.

The second official trailer shows more of the characters off, the game world, some of the environments, vehicles (planes included) and more. It doesn't look, from this trailer at least, that the game is going to be more of the same, but on a much, much bigger scale. This isn't bad, but I'd love to see Rockstar push the GTA game into a completely new direction.

We already know there's going to be three protagonists in GTA V, where you can switch in and out of these characters at any time - the camera zooms up into the sky, locates the character of choice, and zooms back in giving you control of the next protagonist. Very cool. The trailer looks like it's using either a higher resolution than the consoles it is going to be released on (Xbox 360, PS3) or they've used the render res (most likely just under 720p) and slapped on some AA. Hopefully it looks that good, and runs that well, when it's released.

News outlet CNN were notified by a Denver Metro area man of a UFO he recorded on his digital camera. He stood on the hilltop of Federal Heights, Denver and pointed his camera south toward downtown Denver capturing caught footage of an unidentified flying object. The man caught the UFOs flying at between noon and 1pm. The UFOs are flying too fast to see with the naked eye, and can only be spotted when played back on video.

Steve Cowell, Aviation Expert, former commercial pilot, instructor and FAA accident prevention counsellor. "That is not an aeroplane, that is not a helicopter, those are not birds, uhhh, I can't identify it". Cowell told CNN that he knows of no aircraft that can fly that fast. Cowell did state that there was one other possibility, "perhaps there's some sort of debris, that is being raised up by some of the atmospheric winds".

But in his professional opinion, he tells CNN "it is an unidentified flying object". The Federal Aviation Association (FAA) monitors all air traffic across the entire of the United States, and sent the CNN a statement saying:

Browsermark 2.0 is now available. Browsermark, a benchmark produced by Rightware, is a benchmarking tool designed to test mobile and embedded devices, though it will work on any browser that has an internet connection. This means the benchmark can be used to analyze high performance desktops all the way down to that single core phone from 2008.

"We are all frustrated with the performance of our browser, based on the device we are web browsing on, and continually ask, 'Am I expecting too much from my tablet?'" said Tero Sarkkinen, CEO of Rightware. "Browsermark answers that question for you! This simple-to-run test will help you decide which browser provides the best web experience for your device. In addition to measuring your own device, consumers can check out the latest results of many devices in our Power Board online database. We believe these two technologies will help to improve the user experience on every device."

The test covers the usual: page loading, page resizing, conformance testing, and network speed. However, the new version also covers WebGL, Canvas, HTML5, and CSS3/3D. Best yet, the Browsermark 2.0 benchmark is completely free to use for everyone, which will make it easier for you to compare your shiny new device to your friend's old one.