Latest News - Page 3057

BT Games have sneakily posted the PC system requirements for the upcoming Treyarch-made Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. The system requirements are very modest meaning the game should run on even older systems:

Can you wait for COD: Black Ops 2? I don't think people will be buying it for the graphics, but the amount of production money that this games budget would be, could afford Activision to spend some money on a new graphics engine, don't you think?

Optus have today announced that their 4G network will go live across Sydney and Perth, and have promised that Melbourne will receive the same 4G treatment once the company's spectrum refarming operations of their new 3G Plus network are completed.

Optus' 4G network is available as of right now for small-to-medium businesses, as well as corporate customers. No consumer-based plans are here yet, but the company has plans to roll it out "shortly". Business customers can grab a 4G data card or 4G Wi-Fi hotspot from today, with an offer of 10GB per month for $40 per month, full pricing is said to be coming soon. Optus have also said that it won't be charging a premium for its 4G network at the moment.

Coverage-wise, 4G will blast over Sydney and Perth spans a 20km radius around the respective CBDs, with Melbourne's network (when it goes live) set to span 30km east-to-west, and 16km north-to-south. Melbourne misses out for now as the telco needs to complete their 2G refarming operations for the creation of the enhanced 3G Plus network before it flicks the switch on 4G for Victoria. As soon as the refarming to 3G Plus is complete, Melbourne will have 4G from Optus.

iMore is reporting that they've learnt that Apple is planning to announce the new iPhone (I really don't think we're going to see a number-based name, I think we're going to see Apple use the same naming scheme as the 'new iPad') on September 12. This announcement would be followed by a release 9 days later on September 21.

The site also reports that the iPad mini would be announced on the same day, as well as the new iPod nano. There's no release date rumor on the new iPad mini, but it would most likely fall on the same day as the new iPhone. As for the new iPod, that date could be anywhere, but I would place bets that Apple will concentrate on the new iPhone and iPad mini first.

The dates do line up with previous Apple announcements, and releases shortly after. The iPhone 4S was announced on October 4, 2011 and released 10 days later on October 14. This event also included slight updates to the iPod line, including the white iPod touch 4. This year, we saw the third-generation 'new iPad' announced on March 7, and released 9 days later on March 16. This also included the 1080p Apple TV during the same event.

Seagate have been rumored to be looking at scooping up an SSD maker, where it piled up into a RumorTT post regarding Seagate acquiring OCZ. The news flared up again this week with tech blog side the Bright Side of News reporting that the deal between the companies was "done". But, it appears that it is not actually done and that Seagate might not acquire OCZ at all, at least, not right now.

Since the BSN post, OCZ shares jumped up 30-percent on Friday, and up 66-percent since mid-July all based on speculation that Seagate were to acquire the company. But, it looks like those highs are over, and OCZ's share prices are falling back down to more reasonable levels. OCZ shares topped at $7.60, and have now dropped to $6.36. On Thursday, the prices were hovering at around $5.40 a share.

Then we have a Reuters article who quoted Seagate CFO Pat O'Malley, who said that the company would be interested in acquiring an SSD maker that has a "significant" share of the enterprise market, where he adds:

I'm sure you've all been walking down the street texting or playing a game on your phone and walked into someone or something. I know I have and I know I'm not alone. According to the Associated Press, the number of citizens walking into poles, ditches, on-coming cars, and each other while using electronic devices has 'quadrupled.'

The internet has nearly as many bloopers of this as it does cat videos, including the one above of a man walking into a black bear while texting. While it's hilarious to watch, it's most certainly a serious problem and is implicated in the 4.2% rise in pedestrian fatalities in 2010. Some states are even trying to outlaw distracted walking.

A whopping 1,152 people went to the emergency room last year, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Some highlights of the sad and hilarious stories:

Microsoft has been keeping some information about Surface secret, namely it's price and launch date. Thanks to a filing with the SEC, we can now report the launch date of the upcoming Surface tablets. According to the filing, the new Surface tablets will go on sale October 26 alongside the launch of Windows 8.

In Microsoft's annual filing, you can find the following: "The next version of our operating system, Windows 8, will be generally available on October 26, 2012. At that time, we will begin selling the Surface, a series of Microsoft-designed and manufactured hardware devices." We still don't have any numbers on the price.

A typically ambitious Microsoft is looking to sell "a few million Surface PCs" in the coming year", but this could prove easier said than done. Apple has a major stronghold on the tablet market and Google is adding to the competition with its newly released Nexus 7. Not knowing the price could cause people to write the tablets off before they even launch so it's important for Microsoft to get that information out.

Earlier today, stories were hitting the web that Ubisoft's DRM installed a browser plug-in that contained a backdoor. Ubisoft acted quickly and has released a patch to fix the security hole as it turns out that the backdoor was an accident and was in no way meant to be there, or at least not exploitable as it was.

Tavis Ormandy, a Google security engineer, found the backdoor and wrote about it on the Seclists.org mailing list on Sunday. Mr. Ormandy went as far as to post a few lines of Javascript as an untested proof of concept. This morning, the story made it onto Hacker News along with a working proof of concept.

The list of games which come with Uplay, and the vulnerability, are as follows:

Microsoft will release Windows 8 on October 26, and have today unveiled a bunch of accessories that are designed to work with the new operating system. Microsoft unveiled five new products which are made up from two Bluetooth-enabled keyboards, and three wireless mice. All of the accessories will be made available from Microsoft's online store, as well as the usual retailers, and will be priced from $49.95 to $79.95.

First up there's the Wedge Mobile Keyboard. It's a stylish Bluetooth keyboard that has been made specifically for tablet use, sporting a slim design with Win 8 hot keys for quick access to search, device settings, and more. It includes a protective that can be folded at different angles, so that you can use it as a stand for your tablet. If it's placed over the keyboard, it will power down the Windows 8-based device in order to save battery. The Microsoft Wedge Mobile Keyboard will be priced at $79.95.

Next up we have the Wedge Touch Mouse, which looks like a treadmill. The Wedge Touch Mouse is small enough to throw in your pocket, and sports four-way touch-scrolling to make navigating Windows 8 nice and easy. The mouse also features technology that allows it to be used on virtually any surface, as well as a battery-saving mode. It will be priced to $69.95.

Apple acquired Authentic, who is a leading provider of mobile and network security for the tidy sum of $356 million last week. Under the deal, Authentic are set to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple.

Shares of Authentic closed at $5.07 on the 27th of July, with Apple paying a 58-percent premium on this valuation at $8 per share. This means that share holders of Authentic would've had a nice surprise for the weekend just gone. Authentic are best known for producing fingerprint sensors, NFC chips and security software for mobiles.

Authentic has some big customers in their pockets, such as Samsung, HP, Fujitsu, Dell and Lenovo. Apple seem to have secured a firm which deals in security, after the many many stories of their OS being not as secure as they're previously stated. We should hopefully see the effects of Apple's latest acquisition in the coming years.

If you thought Gigabyte's motherboards were good, you ain't seen nothing yet. How would Gigabyte best show off what 32-phases of power regulation can do? In Gigabyte's case, you grab two 1200W power supplies, wire up the motherboard to handle three DC load testers, and throw 2000W of power through the CPU socket, that's what.

Gigabyte says that this is enough power to power 25 of Intel's Core i7-3770K CPUs. But, you might already know you won't ever need to draw down 2000W, but the company is simply showing off how good their new Ultra Durable 5 motherboard design using PowIRstage's is compared to previous boards.

The demonstration is meant to whet the appetite of enthusiasts for their upcoming Z77X-UP7. It's also the first sneak peak at the final board design, which has changed slightly from the last board seen at Computex, now sporting a gorgeous black and orange look, with a new heatsink design.

Security firm BT are claiming that more than one-third of all Android apps have malware baked inside of them. BT bases their statement on tests that the firm itself has conducted, where they examined more than 1,000 Android apps.

According to the company, the fact that malware is in that many devices means that those devices are compromised in some way or another. The company said this during a panel discussion at NetEvents Americas conference. The panel moderator pointed out that he had found malware in an application whilst reviewing Samsung's latest Galaxy S III, with BT's representatives detailing the company's findings.

One thing that BT hasn't revealed is whether the malware they found was found in apps coming from Google's Play Store. With Google's Android-based devices being capable of downloading apps from more than one place, it may be possible that BT's numbers are a bit explosive, and aren't really a representation of people who download apps directly from the Play Store, and nowhere else.

Google, not wanting to be outdone by Bing, has updated Google Maps and Google Earth with new high resolution imagery that encompasses 25 cities and 72 countries. Google had previously announced they were taking aerial shots of the globe to include in Maps and Earth and this imagery is finally starting to see the light of day.

Quite frankly, the imagery is gorgeous. Since the Olympics are in town, Google is of course using Olympic Park and Village in London as the poster child, as you can see in the picture above. Hands down, this level of detail makes Google Maps the number one mapping service. If you look at competitors, it isn't even close.

Google has also increased its 45* offerings with 21 U.S. cities and 7 locations internationally. Google explains which locations got what:

Athlon chips just won't die. While originally the top of the market, AMD changed the name usage to be used in conjunction with budget parts with the introduction of the Phenom parts. Even when Llano came out, the Athlon's got an upgrade into the FM1 socket and are basically the same, minus the on-board GPU.

And know we can say that the Athlon processor will continue to live on, even after AMD transitions to the FM2 socket. AMD is planning three new Athlon chips for the socket, and while we know only the most basic details, the main takeaway from this is that the Athlon brand will continue to live on for another day.

The three new chip models are the Athlon II X4 730, 740 and 750K. Athlon II X4 730 and 740 are 65 Watt processors and operate at 2.8 GHz and 3.2 GHz. The 750K is a 100 Watt product and should have an unlocked multiplier, due to it being a K processor. They will all be quad cores with 4MB L2 cache and will be based upon Piledriver.

In these days of high refresh rates, 120Hz is about the best you can get without some trickery in profiles and "overclocking" your monitor in a sense. ASUS have stepped in with a brand new monitor, the ASUS VG2788HE.

ASUS' VG2788HE is a 27-inch monitor, which has broken through the limit of 120Hz most monitor seems maxed at these days. It hits 144Hz, providing an extra 24 frames per second (or images per second) compared to 120Hz. Personally, I don't think you'd see that much of a difference from 120Hz to 144Hz like the jump from 60 to 120 provides, but for 3D it could be a difference that is quite noticeable.

The VG2788HE is compatible with NVIDIA's 3D Vision 2 technology, but it comes separately to the monitor. The monitor sports HDMI, dual-link DVI and D-SUB connectors, 2x3W stereo speakers are included as well as a mini-jack output that lets you connect headphones. One of the best things I love about this monitor is that it is capable of not just swivel and tilt, but has height adjustment.

A report is claiming to know the launch date and specifications for the upcoming NVIDIA GTX 660 Ti. Nothing has been confirmed by NIVIDIA, so for now it will be treated as a rumor. According to the latest data scored by SweClockers, the GTX 660 is nearly identical to the GTX 670 and the launch is only about 3 weeks away.

The GTX 660 Ti is said to be a 28 nm GK104 GPU with 1,344 CUDA cores enabled, exactly the same as the GTX 670. In fact, the 660 Ti is said to have the exact same clock speeds for both the core and memory as the 670. The memory remains identical at 2GB, as well. It turns out that the only difference is that the memory bus is reduced to 192-bit, down from 256-bit on the 670.

This change will yield a 25% lower bandwidth for memory. It's likely to be arranged with four chips using 32-bit wide paths each and four other chips sharing two 32-bit wide paths. According to the report, the card will launch on August 16. Coincidentally, this is the first public day of the GamesCom event held in Cologne, Germany. This will likely serve as the launchpad for the product.

Google has once again proven itself a company to be reckoned with. Today, Google announced the launch of Google Fiber, their first step to becoming an internet service provider. Available to residents of Kasas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, Google will provide an incredible 1 gigabit upload and download speed for only $70.

While $70 isn't exactly cheap, it's quite a bit cheaper, and faster, than competing services. The average internet speed in the United States is about 5.8Mbps meaning that the Google provided internet is about 100 times faster. If you don't want to pay out $70 a month, Google is offering 5Mbps/1Mbps for "free." All you have to do is pay a $300 construction fee.

"No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting. Gigabit speeds will get rid of these pesky, archaic problems and open up new opportunities for the web," writes Google Vice President Milo Medin, on the company blog. "Imagine: instantaneous sharing; truly global education; medical appointments with 3D imaging; even new industries that we haven't even dreamed of, powered by a gig."

Qualcomm have found a new partnership with French carmaker Renault, where the two companies will begin field trial of its revolutionary wireless electric vehicle charging (WEVC) technology.

If the trial is successful, it could eventually lead to a wider adopton of all-electric vehicles, as well as other potential uses in many different markets. Drawbacks in the way of widespread charging stations have really stopped this type of technology from impacting our day-to-day lives, or making it into vehicles in bigger numbers, but it looks like WEVC could change all of this.

Qualcomm's technology uses a concept involving inductive power transfer from tow coils tuned to create a magnetic field to "move" the power from one location to another. In order for the vehicle to be wirelessly charged, it requires a charging mat that gets embedded in the ground, and a receiver to be installed on the underside of the vehicle.

During videogame conference Casual Connect in Seattle, Valve boss Gabe Newell branded Windows 8 as "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space". He added that in the fallout from Windows 8 "we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people."

Newell adds that one of the last remaining things keeping people from trying Linux was the lack of games, but with the company bringing both Steam, and Left 4 Dead 2 to the platform, it could be the start of a new direction for the PC. Newell describes it as "a hedging strategy" and if his predictions of Windows 8 are correct, he says "it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality".

But, you've got to remember, Valve makes money from every sale on their digital distribution platform, Steam. Windows 8 sports a built-in Windows Store, which would challenge Valve's revenue source, maybe not in a direct way, but it will still be competition. But, Microsoft's Windows Store is more closed, and controlled, compared to Valve's Steam platform.

Samsung first showed off their 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, and since its unveiling the slate, Samsung have baked in a few changes before release.

Since MWC, the Note 10.1 has received some of the same treatment the flagship Galaxy S III smartphone was treated to, this includes a similar color scheme of white and silver. It also includes the same Exynos 4 Quad processor, giving us a 1.4GHz quad-core CPU rocking along inside, as well as 2GB of RAM and support for HSPA+ 3G internet.

The Brave Post have managed to get their grubby little paws on one, and revealed the above details. Not only that, but they suggest that the inclusion of 3G internet access extends the Note 10.1's phone functionality, where it can act as a speaker phone and message access point. Samsung are still prepped to announce something on August 15, but this could well be their Galaxy Note II.

AOL reported their Q2 earnings report, seeing revenues of $531 million. This makes it AOL's lowest total revenue decline in seven years, with a 2-percent year-on-year decrease.

AOL's legacy income, such as mobile carrier revenues and subscriptions continued to fall, but it was offset by growth in international display advertising and third-party network revenues. Operating income was boosted by the $96 million AOL made from licensing patents to Microsoft.

But, AOL have insisted that its EIBDA grew regardless of this deal with Microsoft, saying that "excluding those items, the remaining Q2 2012 Adjusted OIBDA of $94.6 million reflects an increase of $18 million year-over-year." AOL chairman and CEO, Tim Armstrong said: