Latest News - Page 3088

Boxee has slowly been making their Boxee Box more awesome, but I think today's change will catapult it into the hearts, souls and pants of many more. Boxee has just teased they're nearly ready to introduce Pornhub.

Yes, Pornhub. Pornhub is considered the YouTube of porn, where it offers user-generated video, as well as professional-grade content. Yes, it's porn, but porn is a multi-billion market, and Boxee are smart for entering that arena. Boxee are also not new to offering adult services, such as Fyre.

Pornhub will make its ad-free debut, free to watch is a great way to get customers interesting. It also claims its the first, official free adult app on Boxee to do so. This marks the first move of Pornhub being made available on TVs. Right now, Pornhub's bread and butter (I was going to use a pun, but I'll keep it clean!) is still the web, where they enjoy an insane 100 million page views per day, with 25 million visitors and 3 billion page views per month.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview came out just a little over 24 hours ago, and has enjoyed an insane 1 million-plus downloads in those 24 hours. This is a runaway success for Microsoft, which is pretty much going all-in with their next-generation OS.

Considering that over 1 million people downloaded the OS, the servers handled it pretty damn well. I personally had no issues with the download, with it maxing out my 8Mbit connection. I also didn't notice a single person on my Facebook news feed whinging, so that's a good sign, isn't it? Or maybe I don't have enough friends?

Microsoft broke the news on their BuildingWindows8 Twitter feed, saying "One day later... one million downloads of the consumer preview.

WHERE WAS MY INVITE, ROCKSTAR?!?! Anyway, the worldwide gaming press have had their first hands-on taste of the slow-mo, gun-toting Max Payne 3 and have some seriously amazing things to say about it.

Rockstar showed them a bit of the game, with the story early on, they find Max and his partner Passos meeting up with the ruthless Comando Sombra gang at a local football stadium in an attempt to exchange cash for the captive Fabiana Branco. However, things quickly turn bad as the deal is crashed by unknown assailants. From there, they're also given a taste of a level where Max tracks Fabiana's kidnappers to the hostile, rain-soaked docks by the Tietê River...

The impressions and quotes? Incredible. Excitement... building... The only thing holding me back is most of these sites give games like Call of Duty: Yet Another Sequel games high scores, but Max Payne is quite close to my heart, please let these quotes be complete 100-percent excitement and truth.

OCZ have just added two more drives to their Agility 3 range of SSDs, with new capacities: 180GB and 360GB. The SandForce SF-2281 controller is here to help, by supporting up to eight channels, but it can also run in 6-channel mode, which is how you get the 180 and 360GB capacities.

SandForce-powered drives use roughly 7-percent of the storage space for over-provisioning by default, plus possibly RAISE as well, depending on the SSD itself. These SSDs sport 192GiB and 384GiB of actual NAND on the drive. 2.5-inch drives usually sport 16GB NAND packages but in order to run in 6-channel mode you only use 12 packages (i.e. two NAND packages per channel).

This means, for the 180GB mode, it would have twelve 16GiB NAND packages with two 8GiB dies per package. The 360GB model just doubles the dies per NAND package, so we're left with twelve 32GiB packages, with four dies each.

I've just watched the new trailer to The Avengers, and holy crap it is amazing. The first trailer was good, but this had the hairs on the back of my neck well and truly standing.

The trailer shows off some insane action, and the scope and scale of the movie is shown much better in this trailer. I'm loving that they have crammed so many characters into one movie, something that could've only been dreamt of 20 years ago.

There are tonnes of tracking shots in the movie, one-liners should be rampant, too. I just love Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark. Chris Evans plays Captain America amazingly, too. It's also good to see the soon-to-be new Bourne playing Hawkeye, too.

If we listen to the latest data from comScore, Google+ users actually spent an average of 3.3 minutes per month on Google+ in January of this year. Comparing this number to Facebook, where they have an average of 7.5 hours last month, this is a whopping 136-times greater than the average Google+ visitor.

Google of course downplayed the super-low numbers, claiming that their own internal data shows much higher numbers, and that Google+ is actually growing. If we look at the other comScore data, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter all beat Google+ in minutes-per-month spent on the respective social networking websites. We have 17 minutes, 8 minutes, and 21 minutes for LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter, respectively.

Just 7.5 hours a month on Facebook? Well, considering I'm on the thing for 8 hours-plus per day, what am I? A super non-average Facebook user? Am I addicted? Not as much as some, I have friends and family who literally spend those 7.5 hours, in a single day, on a smartphone, and not get bored. I'm bored of Facebook in minutes, I just have it sitting in a Chrome tab, waiting for that (1) to show up and haunt me to check it out.

Rumors of Doom 4 being cancelled have once again been shot down by Bethesda Softworks, after All Games Beta publishing some information stating that the game had been cancelled, simultaneously releasing leaked screenshots that originally surfaced on 4Chan.

Bethesda vice president of public relations and marketing, Pete Hines, said to Joystiq in a statement, that Doom 4 is not cancelled and that when they are ready to discuss the game and show it off, they'll let everyone know. All Games Beta opened the floodgates and have now added more screenshots to their gallery, totalling 170 images.

Considering that id's RAGE was not that great, personally, critically and across the world, it would be hard to have faith in this after RAGE took five-plus years to develop. id need to go back to their roots as a PC-exclusive developer and push the envelope with Doom 4 if they want their time in the lime light once more. A PC-exclusive, PC-crushing, crap-your-pants horror game is what we need right now. Doom 4 could re-spark PC's constantly-dimming light.

Foursquare lover? PlayStation Vita owner? Well, the Foursquare app has officially checked in to the US PlayStation Store, and for just 4.5MB, it can be yours. The app works over Wi-Fi, but the app does suggest you use 3G to help the Vita's GPS get the correct position of your check-in.

Foursquare's app is also said to be compatible with the Vita's rear touchpad and cameras, which is a nice bonus. Engadget have prodded around with the Foursquare app and report that it feels similar to the Facebook app released just a few days ago for the PS Vita.

Vita owner? Foursquare user? Be sure to leave a comment to let us know your experience with the Vita + Foursquare, there's over 1.2 million of you out there now!

Ah, Sonic, the memories I have of you are so great. AnandTech have had some hands-on time with the Tegra Zone enhanced version of Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II, which was only announced yesterday for NVIDIA's quad-core 4-PLUS-1 Tegra 3.

Cross-platform development of games is important these days, with Sega looking to tap the gamers of XBLA, PSN, iOS and Android for Sonic. The Android port more specifically, saw NVIDIA work closely with Sega to crete a Tegra 3-enhanced version of the game, which is said to mimic the quality one would expect from the console-based ports.

AnandTech said the game "does indeed look very impressive", and had the fast-moving hedgehog plugged up to a 50-inch-plus LED TV. Water and fire effects are said to be pretty much what the console versions look like, but NVIDIA did not have a console on-hand for a side-by-side comparison between the various platforms. Performance-wise, AnandTech reports that the framerate did dip below the 30fps mark a few times, but did not hurt the overall experience of the game.

We still don't know what the next-generation Xbox will be called when it launches, but if we're to believe a short and sweet Tweet from a Crytek developer, then we'll have to believe the Xbox 720/Next/whatever they call it, has the codename of "Durango".

Senior technical designer at Crytek, Sean Tracy, wrote on his Twitter feed (which has now been deleted):

Just over a month ago now, PayPal announced a small five-store pilot with The Home Depot in order to test out PayPal's in-store payment system. PayPal are now proud to announce that The Home Depot are now starting a national roll-out that will let customers pay for goods with PayPal in all of its nearly 2,000 locations nationwide.

Within the fortnight, every The Home Depot store in the U.S. will allow payments from customers using a PayPal card, or mobile phone number and PIN combination. Here's some details on the rollout, and cities:

Starting on February 27th

VR-Zone have an interesting piece on the power circuitry within NVIDIA's upcoming Kepler GPU, and it reveals some juicy info. First up, NVIDIA is tapping the supply chain maker Foxconn to manufacture the high-end Kepler-based GPUs, and according to sources, NVIDIA has used the strategy of switching between Flextronics and Foxconn in the past, but are now happy with Foxconn.

The board talked about was manufactured in Q3 of last year, which would lead us to believe that NVIDIA have had Kepler GPUs for a while now. Kepler was meant to see the light of day in 2011, with Maxwell hitting in 2013, but that won't be happening now. It's obvious that yields were low once again for NVIDIA, which is why they would've stopped from pushing Kepler cards into production. In NVIDIA's recent financial analyst call, the can-of-whoop-ass himself Jen-Hsun stated that the 28nm supply will be "constrained through the year (2012)".

The diagram above shows that the board in question (GeForce GTX 670 Ti) requires a single six-pin and eight-pin power cables, which gives us 75W + 150W + 75W = 300W total, even though it should still work with just two six-pin rails. Three phases are dedicated to feed the GPU, and dual phase is for the rest of the board. VR-Zone say they'll continue to post articles covering this in the future, while I wait with anticipation.

Epic Games are set to show off their next-generation gaming engine, Unreal Engine 4, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week. Epic will unveil a preview version of it's "next-generation game technology" - Unreal Engine 4 to "select licensees, partners and prospective customers during the exhibition" according to its announcement earlier today.

Epic have already teased what is capable from the next-gen engine with their high-end Unreal Engine 3 Samaritan tech demo, with Epic's Vice President Mark Rein saying at the time:

Did you feel that? Yeah, that. You know, that breath of fresh air? Oh, it was just Samsung's Product Strategy Executive, Hankil Yoon, talking the truth and not marketing spin or lies. Yoon revealed some interesting facts about Samsung's experience so far, in the tablet market by saying "honestly, we're not doing very well in the tablet market" according to a report from CNET.

They are some strong, harsh, yet refreshingly honest words coming from an executive of a company who seems to be the David in this David vs. Goliath battle with Apple in the tablet market. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, Yoon added that "the best thing to survive in the market is to kill your products, we want to stay competitive in the market". This is why we're seeing Samsung pushing their Galaxy Note, which sports a Stylus pen.

Samsung struggling in the traditional tablet market is making them think outside of the square, with Yoon stating that he no longer carries around physical notepads or pens, and does all of his jotting down onto his 5-inch Galaxy Note. He adds "even if the design is smaller, how you use the (Note) is totally different". Yoon also dismissed early criticism of the Galaxy Note, saying it would take some education for consumers to begin to get comfortable with the larger screen.

Intel have confirmed that their next-generation, 22nm-fabbed Ivy Bridge chips will go on sale eight-to-ten weeks later than they had originally planned, according to Executive Vice-President of Intel, and chairman of Intel China, Sean Maloney.

Maloney talked about the delay in his first interview to discuss Intel's business in China, where he told the Financial Times that the start of sales that sport Ivy Bridge had been pushed back from April, where he says "I think maybe it's June now". First off you "think", Sean? How can you not know this?

Maloney said the adjustment was due to problems with the manufacturing process, and also stated that the global launch of the new Intel-powered smartphones would follow the launch of other global launches this year. An Intel-powered Lenovo-based phone would become available in other countries four to five months after it's initial launch in China. Maloney also denied reports that Ivy Bridge was pushed back due to the over-stocked inventories of Sandy Bridge-based notebooks, citing manufacturing process issues.

Microsoft's timeframe for Windows 8 is not being discussed, and this worries not only the Bright Side of News*, but me, too. BSN* received some interesting news regarding the timeframe of Windows 8, with information pointing to all resources being poured into the x86-based version of the OS for notebooks, desktops, workstations and server, with no attention being given for the ARM-based version of Windows 8.

Microsoft didn't let anyone have any hands-on time with the ARM version of Windows 8 at CES 2012, and the repeat is happening now in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress. On top of this, Qualcomm have announced they've delayed their quad-core processors from summer 2012, to Q1 2013. This could of course open the flood gates for NVIDIA and their quad-core-based Tegra 3 SoC, but it looks as though their having issues with the 28nm process and not talking about opportunities.

BSN* have talked to "highly ranked executives close to the heart of the matter" that say Windows 8 for x86 processors will debut in Q4 of this year, with Windows-on-ARM debuting 12 months from now, at MWC 2013, with availability two-to-three months from it being shown off at MWC 2013. This information, of course, Microsoft doesn't want known. Microsoft are expected to unleash the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, but this will reportedly not be the only public version they release.

ASUS have unveiled their superhero-like Padfone at Mobile World Congress, and what a phone it is. ASUS' Padfone sports a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display, Snapdragon's new dual-core S4 processor, an Adreno 225 GPU, Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich, an 8-megapixel rear-facing with an LED flash and f/2.2, autofocusing lens.

This is all backed up with between 16 and 64GB of internal storage which can be expanded through microSD cards, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, GPS, A-GPS, a gyroscope, 1,520mAh battery and a compass. Connectivity-wise we're looking at WCDMA (900, 2100MHz), EDGE/GPRS/GSM (850, 1800 and 1900MHz) and HSPA+, with theoretical download speeds of 42Mbps.

This all slides into a beautiful 9.2mm frame, and that's not all. Apart from a set of steak knives, it does everything, including the near-exclusive way of sliding into a tablet-like device. This will let you use the device like a 10.1-inch tablet, and also extends the battery by, oh, just 9-fold. Yes, 9-fold. ASUS will also be selling a keyboard dock, so you can slide that 10-inch phone-tablet into an actual physical keyboard. In the shot above, you can also see a stylus. Say what!

Opera Software have just released some new web browser goodies in the form of Opera Mini Next and Opera Mobile 12. The new browser introduces Smart Page, which is a new feature being previewed in the Opera Mini Next series of web browsers for feature phones, which will be launched on all Opera Mini browsers for feature phones later this year.

Smart Page will join Opera's Speed Dial shortcuts which give feature phones smarter access to social networks, the latest news and more. Social integration is built into the first screen of Opera Mini Next, including Facebook and Twitter. The smartphone versions of Opera Mini Next does not make an appearance in this version. Android's Opera Mini Next app will receive a smoother browsing experience, including hardware acceleration and a revamped Speed Dial.

Opera Mobile 12 also launched at MWC, and brings "more goodies" to owners of Android and Symbian, the following is included in Opera Mobile 12:

Ah, Angry Birds. Waster of tens of hours of my time, and just today I'm out at the shops and see a constant flow of plush toys that I'm ever-so-tempted to buy. Out today from Samsung Mobile's Facebook page, I noticed a tease of... Angry Birds: Space.

Angry Birds: Space has a YouTube video, above, and teases with "Houston..", "We have a slingshot", then bam - Angry Birds: Space's logo splashed upon Samsung's Galaxy Note that is set to launch soon.

What should we expect? Well, I'm guessing a space-themed Angry Birds game. But will it introduce new things to the game? That's what I'd like to see. Hopefully Rovio don't just expect to continue this franchise by releasing new themes - break out of that usual cycle and change the game up. I'm excited, now I just need a Galaxy Note.

The smartphone industry is one of the toughest to stand out in, and HTC hope to stand proud with their latest and greatest handset, One. HTC CEO Peter Chou, said in an event in Barcelona:

Chou took a minute to note that taking photos is the second thing that people do on their phones, after making phone calls, and that HTC One will be good enough to replace your standard camera. He continued "it is the one phone you will need, it is the one camera you will need".