Latest News - Page 3089

This is a subject quite close to my chest, our current financial system. Without getting into a personal post, I'll keep this as professional as I can and leave my opinion out of this and just post it as a pure news post to try to get this as viral as possible. I've noticed this post on Reddit about a $15,000,000,000,000 ($15 trillion) fraud case that was bought up to the UK House of Lords by Lord James of Blackheath.

He has noticed three separate transactions of $5 trillion each, starting with a $5 trillion transfer to HSBC in the UK, seven days later followed another $5 trillion to the HSBC, and three weeks later another $5 trillion. This is a total of $15 trillion, which has entered into the hands of the HSBC, and onward transit to the Royal Bank of Scotland. This is a serious, serious amount of money, and this story should be on every TV, Radio, Cable, Internet channel and everything in between.

Where did $15 trillion come from? Who has that sort of disposable money, without having to loan it? And if you did loan it, what kind of bank loans out $15 trillion? You have to have some very valuable assets in order to just borrow, or lend out, $15 trillion. Let's delve into this more. Lord James of Blackheath has done his research and claims that the money is the property of what some people have called "the richest man in the world", Yohannes Riyadi.

Microsoft have reportedly stopped compiling beta builds of their upcoming OS, Windows 8, and are said to be preparing to sign off on the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, tomorrow. The build (8250) is said to be unveiled at a special event that will coincide with Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next Wednesday at 9AM ET.

The public beta will usher in some huge changes, such as the updated Windows logo, and a new "Charms bar" which replaces the Start menu. The Consumer Preview is said to sport some preinstalled games, including Pinball and Solitaire, while the preview version of the new Windows Store will sport games such as Angry Birds.

Developers will have the ability to publish free apps through the Windows Store, or charge between $1.49 and $999 per download. Microsoft, at first, takes a 30-percent stake in the sales, which is reduced to 20-percent once the app exceeds $25,000 in sales. The OS is expected to include various social and multimedia applications. We should have a huge post on Windows 8 next week, so stay tuned!

Owners of Samsung TVs filed a class-action lawsuit, which has finally reached settlement. Within the settlement, Samsung have promised to pay for the bills of owners repairs, reimburse for already-paid-for repairs, or hand out up to $300 to customers who no longer own their once-faulty TV, once they prove ownership.

The fault only affects the model numbers in the above picture, where it's possible that up to 7 million TVs were affected. The problem is related to an errant capacitor in the power circuit that stops the TV turning on, makes it slow to turn on, produces a "clicking sound" or makes it cycle on and off.

A Samsung spokesperson has said:

Popular GPU overclocking tool, MSI Afterburner, has hit version 2.2.0 Beta 14 and is now available for download. It includes a fair amount of updated features, listed below.

The main updated features of MSI Afterburner 2.2.0 Beta 14

* Fixed sub-zero temperatures reading on certain custom design MSI graphics cards with LM96163 and NCT7718W dedicated thermal sensors.

[UPDATE] I've received an e-mail from a reader who has pointed me to a post by Blizzard Community Manager "Daxxarri", where he has a pretty big message that goes against the post below. He says that the game is in good shape, and that he thinks we will love Diablo III when it is released. He also adds that they want you/us/everyone to have high expectations of not only Diablo III, but all Blizzard-produced games. He also adds that if Diablo III wasn't a worthy instalment in the Diablo III series, they wouldn't bother releasing it, adding that that's the way they've always done it.

Take a look at the post here, which should calm not only my nerves, but your nerves, too. Thanks for the heads up, Andrew!

I've felt this for quite some time now, it started at about the time Blizzard were rumored to be working on Diablo III for consoles, but now they're actually coming out and saying that people should actually lower their expectations for Diablo III. Say. What!!! Direct quote from "Bachiok", Community Manager on Diablo III's forums:

Cloud-based storage company, Box, has just updated their Android app and have baked in a bunch of new features. In order to celebrate this new start, Box are giving away 50GB of free storage to any Android-based user who logs into their service in the next 30 days.

Box's new Android update introduces an overhauled user interface, new features, and includes compatibility for Google's latest OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. Box worked with Google to help redesign the UI with ICS in mind, and even users of previous Android-based OS's will benefit from. New features include the ability to comment on files, add teammates to individual folders, and batch uploads for uploading multiple files at once.

Box are also adding new support for languages, with French, Italian, German, and Spanish being added to the Android app. On top of the free 50GB of storage, Box are also giving away 20 Samsung Android-based tablets to a single company who can compellingly explain how it plans to use Box to improve its daily routines. Two runners-up in the contests will win a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Samsung have teased their latest 32nm quad-core Exynos chip at the ISSCC event, which has been the first example shown of a quad-core Exynos design. The new chip still sports an ARM Cortex-A9, but is now built upon a 32nm process, which provides not only more speed, but better battery life when compared to 2011-era chips.

A new graphics core is featured with four pixel effects processors, and is expected to be around 26-percent faster, even though it uses 34- to 50-percent less power. Just like NVIDIA's Tegra 3 chip, it sports the ability to shut cores off independently to save power, and thus battery life, when a task isn't needed. Samsung's new Exynos chip can support up to dual-channel memory, with either low-power DDR2 or DDR2, to keep the chip working at full speed.

Graphics-wise, it's fast enough to render a whopping 57 million polygons per second. Samsung hasn't made made the new quad-core Exynos chip public yet, but the Mobile World Congress is next week where we're sure they'll want to show it off.

ASRock have just unveiled a new X79-based motherboard, where they've partnered up with pro-gamer Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, who worked closely with ASRock engineers to develop a well-featured motherboard based on Intel's X79 chipset. Enter, ASRock/Fatal1ty X79 Professional. Fatal1ty is quoted:

James Lee, Vice President of ASRock Sales and Marketing chimes in with:

Sony's official US launch for the PlayStation Vita sported LiveTweeting, Wi-Fi-only Netflix access, and Flickr's photo-based networking but missed out on Facebook and Foursquare apps. Well, today that is changed, my friends.

Sony have announced that Facebook is now available for the PS Vita in the form of a 12MB free download from the PlayStation Store. If you've got a PS Vita, first off, how do you find it? Secondly, you should be grabbing the Facebook app and posting your thoughts as a comment on our Facebook page, that would be, in the words of Beavis and Butthead, "cool".

I walked past my local JB Hi-Fi store yesterday (electronics retailer for you non-Australians) and was a bit too busy with my 11-month-old 'dada-ing' and pointing to everything to stop in and see the Australian launch stuff for it. I'm tempted, and I have a few friends who have said good things about it. But, it still needs a kick-arse killer-app in my opinion, for me to justify purchasing something I would only use every now and again.

I love my 2011 Edition 17-inch MacBook Pro, I use it to do all of my TweakTown work and its just a workhorse, it doesn't generally skip a beat. I love it for it's IPS-based 17-inch 1920x1200-pixel panel, which is absolutely gorgeous. But, this news scares me.

Apple are rumored to take a leaf from the MacBook Air's design, and push this into their professional notebook line: the MacBook Pro. Apple have been waiting for Intel's shrunken-down Ivy Bridge processors before launching a new MacBook this year, and now AppleInsider are claiming that the shift will see Apple move their MBP line to be along the lines of the Air's design aesthetic, which will cover 11- to 17-inch models later this year.

Earlier this week we took a trip to the VIA Technologies office not far from our very own actually here in Taipei and got an introduction to a few new products including the brand new VIA EPIA-M900.

The EPIA-M900 is a Mini-ITX motherboard designed for the embedded market and what's special about this board is that it is the world's first to offer a quad-core processor on a Mini-ITX platform. This processor we speak about is the new VIA QuadCore E-Series at 1.2GHz and it also includes Adaptive Overclocking to increase the processor clock speed a little when under heavy load. What's great about this platform besides its small size and fit me anywhere type design, is that it has a TDP (thermal design power) rating of just 27.5 watts.

The processor is teamed up with the VIA VX900H Media System Processor (chipset) and when combined is able to playback 720p and 1080p video as well as offer up to 8GB of DDR3 memory support along with some other goodies you'd expect such as gigabit LAN, HDMI, VGA, four USB 2.0 ports and audio output. The board also includes a single PCIe x16 slot (with effective speed up to PCIe x8) which would allow you to add in a video card if you require additional video outputs for your digital signage needs or whatever else it may be.

The Penny Arcade Report has a pretty juicy review with gaming development god himself, Gabe Newell. In the interview, we don't find out the most importan news to man-kind: the release date of Half-Life 3, but we do find out that Gabe says Valve don'e want to get into the cycle of constantly developing sequels.

Even though that's all they do: Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Counter Strike: Source/Global Offensive, Half-Life 2 (and the Episodes), and more. Gabe also talks about DRM, and says that rather than telling game developers what they can and can't do with their anti-piracy techniques, Newell prefers to show them actual data.

I thoroughly enjoyed the original Borderlands, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited about Borderlands 2. Until now. 2K Games and Gearbox Software just have announced the official launch date of Borderlands 2: September 18th, 2012. The game will be released internationally three days later on September 21st.

On top of the announcement of the game's release, is a brand new, three-minute trailer which asks you a very important question: are you ready to joy puke your face off.

I talked about this a few weeks ago, where I was quite excited by the potential of Android-powered Google HUD glasses. It's become more of a reality, where the New York Times reporting that Google are not only working on them, but Google are planning to launch the glasses by the end of this year.

The New York Times cite "several Google employees familiar with the project", where NYT's Nick Bilton reports that the glasses will be powered by Google's Android OS, sport 3G or 4G connectivity, as well as GPS and a few sensors, cost-wise, we'd be looking at "around the price of current smartphones", so between say $250 and $600.

The HUD glasses are also said to sport a low-resolution camera which can monitor your surroundings in real time and then overlay the relevant information, but Google are said to be paying attention to potential privacy concerts, and "wants to ensure that people know if they are being recorded by someone wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in camera".

CCP Games, the boys and girls behind the MMORPG that is EVE Online, have stated that they cleared more than $66 in revenue last year. EVE Online launched in 2003, with its subscriber base increasing each year, to its current total of 400,000.

Revenue has grown just as much, at a compound annual growth rate of 53-percent, bringing in a total revenue of $300 million over the game's lifetime. Profit-wise, CCP would only say that it has "very healthy margins". CCP has been experimenting with something that gets close to a free-to-play model, where it allows EVE Online's rich subscribers to essentially pay for others to play, in exchange for virtual currency, something that is used by more than 40,000 people.

CCP Games' next game is 'DUST 512', and is set to hit this summer, and will push EVE Online further, and in a new direction. CCP Games will charge people for in-game credits rather than subscriptions or playing time. There is however, and initial "cover charge".

We've covered this story quite a bit since it broke, with an editorial, and multiple news pieces as things happened. Even when it was declared he was knocked from his No. 1 spot on COD: Modern Warfare 3. Today, marks a new direction in the case of Megaupload's founder Kim Dotcom. He has received bail, and now has some fairly strict conditions put upon him.

Within the North Shore District Court, we had Justice Dawson, Kim Dotcom, and a bunch of suits. Once it was all done and dusted, Kim Dotcom received the following conditions: he is completely banned from the Internet. Justice Dawson stated that he shouldn't have access to the Internet as he has "the ability to use it for wrong purposes".

Dotcom is now confined to his Coatesville-based mansion, where his wife and children currently reside. He also cannot travel more than 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, from his mansion, on which no helicopters are allowed.

Samsung has just put their school shorts on once again, you know those pressed, private-school, grey-in-color shorts that would be a complete stereotype? Well, yeah. Samsung are introducing something called 'Learning Hub', where they'll offer educational content including 6,000 textbooks and video titles from 30 different education service providers.

Learning Hub will hit Samsung's Android-powered Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9, and at the moment, Samsung have only teased us all with some screenshots, but with Mobile World Congress in a little over a weeks time, we should have some more information then.

The Learning Hub is set to offer an interactive learning experience and to encourage self-learning where it features an automatic scoring system as motivation. Note correction is included, as well as the ability to annotate documents. Samsung are obviously hoping this Learning Hub will give them a foot in the door to education-based institutions such as schools, universities, and more.

NVIDIA have just release some very special drivers in the form of the GeForce 295.73 WHQL Drivers. NVIDIA say they are essential for Skyrim, Diablo III and Mass Effect 3, and once you see these numbers, you'll probably agree.

The drivers sport numerous "game-changing", NVIDIA-exclusive improvements that have been baked into previous beta downloads, as well as a few other treats, all wrapped up in a nice WHQL-certified package. Skyrim gets a serious punch in frame rates with these new drivers, with performance on the GeForce GTX 560 receiving an amazing 44.5-percent increase in performance, and GTX 560 SLI performance seeing a boost of 44.1-percent. The GTX 580 sees a nice 36-percent bump, with GTX 580 SLI only receiving 17.3-percent. All of this testing is done at 1920x1080 with Indoor Scenes, Ultra Detail, 8xMSAA, 16xAF.

Diablo III Beta doesn't miss out from these new drivers, where the immersive Ambient Occlusion shadowing now featuring in Diablo III, which looks quite good. Instructions on how to enable this feature are available on NVIDIA's website.

Team Green is hard at work on their Kepler GPUs, which are based on a 28nm process, and it seems as though the GK104 part is going to be called the GeForce GTX 670 Ti.

NVIDIA is obviously keen to get this part onto shelves now, to combat the GCN-based AMD Radeon HD 79x0 parts, and this could be way the otherwise mid-range SKU has been changed from what should've been the GTX 660 to the GTX 670 Ti. This move could be so that it indicates this part will perform competitively against the high-end parts already on the market, such as the HD 7000-series.

Sources have told SweClockers that they expect the GK104-based GeForce GTX 670 Ti to outperform the GeForce GTX 580 and Radeon HD 7950. techPowerUp are reporting they're hearing rumblings of a March launch, and if NVIDIA want to beat the HD 7800-series launch, they'll have to wave that Team Green flag, now.

Softbank, Japan's third-largest mobile carrier is set to enable a new high-speed mobile data service this week, with a portable Wi-Fi router capable of download speeds of 76Mbps. Softbank have also stated that its 4G network will eventually support devices with speeds of up to 110Mbps.

The official launch of Softbank 4G will be held this Friday, where the first 4G-capable Wi-Fi router will reportedly be the size of a "soap-bar", and is from Seiko Instruments. This device will allow up to 10 Wi-Fi users to share the mobile connection, with the aforementioned download speeds of up to 76Mbps down, and 10Mbps up.

Softbank's high-speed network is based on a format called AXGP, which is an advanced version of an older Japanese standard, Personal Handy-phone System (PHS). Softbank has said that they are "highly compatible" with TD-LTE, a Chinese standard otherwise known as LTD TDD, which is growing in popularity throughout Asia. There are also reports floating around that Apple are said to be baking in support for the standard in future devices.