Latest News - Page 3034

In case you didn't already realize that all of these patent wars between various companies was hurting not just consumers, and businesses, but it's also hurting innovation. This innovation stops you from getting better, thinner, more exotic products, and now The New York Times has chimed in with a piece on the subject.

The Times' piece covers the fact that big companies usually strong arm small start-ups with an extensive patent portfolio that usually ends up with an acquisition, and if the smaller company isn't acquired they're sued.

The Times' piece also reveals that the smartphone industry spent a whopping $20 billion (or so) on patent litigation in the past two years. Companies such as Apple and Google have spent more money on legal battles than research and development in the past twelve months. Splitting this up, we find Apple spending around $3 billion on R&D last year, with another $4 billion to be spend this year. Those numbers may seem large, but they are far less than most other technology companies.

Samsung has submitted a new "flash-friendly" file system to the Linux Kernel tree thanks to their codesmith Jaegeuk Kim. The new file system has been dubbed F2FS (flash-friendly file system) and is an open source design, and is the results of the South Korean company's efforts to our modern day flash storage tech.

The most used "universal" file systems are FAT16 and FAT32, but are getting quite old now, so old that they predate huge, rewriteable flash-based devices. Most file systems don't actually suit flash media, which is where Samsung has entered the game, offering up a new file system for a new breed of devices.

F2FS is a log-based system, which is set to go down a different path than current file systems, as explained below:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and 3 are seeing an update that removes Favella from the online map rotation while Activision works on an update to remove a texture. The texture in question is the picture frame that is located in a bathroom on the map. The picture frame is written on in Arabic script from the Qu'ran that reads, "Allah is beautiful and He loves beauty."

This has upset several Muslim gamers as Islamic law states that holy writings are not allowed to be in a bathroom. Not exactly unreasonable, but also a somewhat obscure law, I'm sure. The response discussed above regarding removing the map from rotation is in response to several Muslim gamers placing complaints regarding the writing being located where it was.

The map will be back in rotation as soon as Activision can release an update removing the text from the picture frame.

Users of the popular video chat and messaging application Skype are being targeted by a round of ransomware and click fraud that is being sent around as a message from contacts. The message reads "lol is this your new profile pic?" and is then followed by a link. The link downloads a zip file, which contains an executable that infects the system.

The executable opens up a Java exploit using BlackHole 2.0. The system is then locked down via the ransomware and displays a message requesting money. GFI, the company that first reported this latest wave, explains how it works:

Android 4.2 rumors are really building up, with all of the news that there's an impending LG-built Nexus-branded phone that is meant to drop later this month and be available next month.

Android 4.2 is beginning to pop up on some logs that are running on current Nexus-branded devices. The new smartphone is reportedly running with a codename of "Occam", with the new tablet codenamed "Manta".

The new Android 4.2-powered devices will have the ability to stream even more content from the Google Play store as well as including a new Customization Cente, which will let users customize both the look and feel of their stock Android device. Out of the rumored features, the one I'm most excited for is something called Project Roadrunner.

Google have been playing with artificial intelligence (AI) for quite a while now, with previous reports and stories of it being able to detect cats in YouTube videos. But now the team is months ahead in their project, where they've been experimenting with different methods and giving it more power.

Google's learning software is all based on simulating groups of connected brain cells, that all communicate and influence each other - which is normally refered to a 'neural network'. When this network is connected to data, the relationships between differing neurons can change. Once this change begins, the network develops new abilities - where it is able to react in different ways to the incoming data, and its new ability is having learnt something.

Learning something for a neural network is the exciting part of it all - and various companies have been playing with this technology for quite a while with the Terminator and Matrix series' famous for making these networks more well-known. Where Google are changing things up is that the Mountain View-based company's engineers have found different ways to put more number-crunching power behind them, creating neural networks that can learn, all without human assistance.

The new iPhone 5 is far from perfect, but there have been some issues with the camera on this model. If you've used an iPhone 5, read our review, or read many of the other reviews out there, you'd have seen that the iPhone 5 has an issue when snapping photos.

The iPhone 5, when held at the right angle and near the right light source, will give off a purple haze on the photo. It's not a deal breaker, but it's something worth noting when buying (or reviewing) a device like this. Apple have come out over the weekend, posting a support notice for it, stating:

Symptoms

Over the weekend, it seems Apple was feeling a little generous - they extended their additional storage offer until September 30, 2013. Originally, this offer was made to customers making the transition from MobileMe to iCloud.

At the time, they'd offer the normal 5GB that comes with iCloud to ease this move, and it was set to expire on September 30, 2012. But, Apple have been sending out e-mails to their customers informing them that this would be extended until September 30, 2013.

Nothing is required to take advantage of this, so if you were still wondering whether you should make the move or not, you now have another twelve months to scratch that noggin' of yours. Thanks Lee for sending this in!

Samsung have have a great year for 2012, but according to Interbrand's latest data, they're really climbing up the ladder when it comes to the value of their brand.

Interbrand gives the world's top companies a brand value, with multiple points of data used to create this "brand value". As you can see from the chart above, Samsung climbed from 17th place in 2011, to 9th place this year. Apple really ramped up the ladder where last year they were 8th and now they're 2nd.

Coca-cola smashes the list sitting at number one both years in a row. What's surprising is that Samsung have overtaken huge companies such as Pepsi, American Express, HP, Disney, Nokia and more. Facebook sit all the way down that list at 69th place.

It was only a few days ago that reports were landing that Google wanted a repeat of the Nexus 7's success, but in smartphone form, and now there's some hands-on reports of LG's Optimus G Nexus.

Android and Me are reporting from multiple sources that have told them that LG are working on a Nexus phone, with some hands-on information to go with it. Their source claims that he's not an employee of Google, but has access to one of the Nexus devices that were handed out last week for testing:

You might be waiting an extra week or three for that new iPhone 5 that you ordered. At 1PM October 5 Beijing time, Foxconn workers went on strike over new quality control standards implemented by Apple and Foxconn. It seems that Apple wanted to reduce the number of iPhone 5s coming with scratches from the factory and tightened quality standards.

Unfortunately, they didn't provide any additional training to workers to meet these new standards. Workers were frustrated by the fact that they couldn't meet these new standards and started beating up quality control inspectors. These inspectors, in turn, went to their management where the managers turned their back on the issues.

This led to a strike of about 4,000 workers and quality control managers, bringing the iPhone 5 production to a halt. The watchdog group China Labor Watch has the following to say about the incident:

We haven't heard much about Megaupload recently. We last left the saga with Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing being pushed off all the way until March of 2013. Now, a user of the Megaupload service has been granted a hearing by the United States court regarding whether or not he should be able to access his stored data.

Kyle Goodwin originally filed a motion back in May with the Electronic Frontier Foundation supporting his request. In the most general of terms, his motion asked the courts to figure out a way to allow users to get back their data from the shut-down servers, arguing that many users hosted legitimate content using the service.

"The Court stated today that it will hold a hearing to find out the details about Mr. Goodwin's property - where it is, what happened when the government denied him access to it, and whether and how he can get it back," says EFF attorney Julie Samuels.

Samsung is a giant when it comes to electronics. Producing a wide array of electronic gadgets, toys, and tools, Samsung has been growing in popularity and quality. The latest smartphones coming out of the company are incredibly brilliant--just ask Anthony Garreffa how much he likes his Galaxy S III!

Due to the smashing success of the Galaxy S III, along with its television division and other smartphone sales, Samsung is estimating record breaking profits of $7.3 billion for the third quarter. The finalized earnings report is due out on October 26, so the real number could be higher or lower than this estimate, though it shouldn't vary by too much.

The estimate places the total consolidated sales at $46.7 billion, which is a huge sum of money. Samsung has to be happy that these figures didn't come out during its trial with Apple as the damages awarded could have come in even higher than the $1 billion that the jury awarded Apple.

The thrifty among our readers will be happy to hear that the AMD Radeon HD 7850 has seen another price cut, bringing the retail price for the 2GB version down to $189. Along with that cut, the rest of the product line continues to trend downwards as the series ages, the process matures, and competition heats up between AMD and NVIDIA.

Anandtech has produced the nice chart you see above. The chart shows how the prices of AMD's offerings have declined continually since launch by comparing launch price, spring MSRP, late summer MSRP, and fall retail price. AMD has changed from quoting MSRP to quoting retail price as that usually is $10 lower than MSRP.

While the prices on the HD 7000 series started out really high, as of late they've become extremely reasonable due to the continual price cuts that AMD has been implementing. With the HD 8000 series due out early next year, prices will likely continue to fall on the HD 7000 series, though probably not until the holidays or just past.

If it wasn't so crazy, you'd think I was making this up...and I wish I was. But, no, I'm not. The following is a completely true political attack on a Democrat candidate using her playing of the popular game World of Warcraft as the focus. For some reason, the Republican incumbent believes that this makes her unfit for office.

Now, I don't want to start any political debates between Republicans and Democrats. Instead, I would like to take this moment to point out how absolutely ridiculous this claim is. The fact that a candidate plays World of Warcraft almost shows that he/she is more in touch with current life than the opposition.

"I think it's weird that I'm being targeted for playing online games," Lachowicz said. "Apparently I'm in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games. What's next? Will I be ostracized for playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends? If so, guilty as charged!"

The cheap $199 Nexus 7 tablet from ASUS and Google was a huge success - I rated it very well and still use it as my everyday tablet. But it looks like Google wants to hit the homerun again, but with a smartphone this time.

Sources have told DigiTimes that Google are working with manufacturers "to launch smartphones based on its Nexus 7 platform". DigiTimes reports that Google are letting OEMs have more free rein on design and hardware specifications as long as they "are based on its latest native Android system".

I really hope we see this happen, and I have no doubt that we will. I expect a launch in early-2013 of the next iteration of Android, which should be Android 4.2 Key Lime Pie, on a Nexus handset. Bring it on.

NVIDIA have pushed forward something called the Green Light program, which is a certification process that is designed to ensure that GPUs meet specific requirements, reports the Bright Side of News.

The Green Light program requires vendors to send in their board designs to NVIDIA, where they wait for their approval from the GPU maker. NVIDIA will check that the design meets their noise, power, voltage and heat numbers - and if it meets them, the card is approved. If not, it is declined and they'll have to resubmit.

What happens if a partner doesn't submit their card for approval? Well, they can have their GPU warranty and BIOS support removed, or worse - they could have their allocation of GPUs from NVIDIA cut down, or stopped completely.

Don't get me started on how much time I wasted during my school years on SimCity. I remember we were one of the first schools in my state to receive a suite of computers, back in the day of the Pentium and CRTs, and mice with balls in them.

I played SimCity on those systems so much, and made my parents get SimCity 2000 which I played for countless hours - but there's a new, PC-exlcusive SimCity coming and boy does it look great. The video above is a 10-minute gameplay unveiling, where we can get the basic idea of how the game has changed, and just how much scope there is built in.

From building residential areas, to dumps, to casinos - SimCity has it all. It looks like a huge time-consuming city-building game, and I think it's going to appeal to a lot of people. SimCity will hit Windows and the Mac in February 2013.

I'm quite excited about Samsung's Galaxy Camera, as it ushers in an era of Android-powered point-and-shoot digital cameras from a strong Android-based smartphone maker.

Samsung's Galaxy Camera will first drop on AT&T's network, who will offer the camera on a 4G (non-LTE) data plan. There's no details on pricing, or if the carrier will offer any sort of subsidy. AT&T have stated that they will unveil pricing when the camera is released in a few weeks time.

In case you haven't heard of the Galaxy Camera, let's run over the specs again. We're looking at a normal point-and-shoot camera, that is just a powerful as a decent smartphone minus the voice call part of things. The Galaxy Camera sports 21x optical zoom with f/2.8 maximum aperture, with a 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor with an ISO range from 100 to 3,200.

OK, so it might not be quite as bad as the title made it sound, but it certainly got your attention, right? Unfortunately, the title is mostly true in that Facebook does automatically increment share counts on websites where the Facebook social plugin is being utilized when a link to that page is shared through private messages.

So, if you copy the link to this page and send it over to a friend, indeed, the "Share" counter will increase by two. Now, Facebook does use robots to scan private messages in order to produce the preview that is shown when a link is sent and to look for sexual predators using the site to look for victims.

But, the fact that a private message is then turned into a public like or share is where the problem comes in. Even though no personally identifiable information is provided, transferred, etc, it still brings to light a massive issue with Facebook and privacy concerns. Facebook's full response is below: