Latest News - Page 3095

Wow. I remember the PowerVR days so fondly. Yes, they didn't make the same impact as 3dfx did in the day, but I remember as a young PC gamer, wanting their hardware so bloody bad it hurt. I remember getting my Dad to import me a 3dfx card (Orchid Righteous 4MB Voodoo card for those who would remember) and it being THE BEST THING EVER.

PowerVR cards were always something I never had, and now there's news they're returning to release a discrete GPU card, in the complete opposite of what they used to do. Imagination Technologies are the team behind it, and last year, they acquired Caustic Graphics.

Caustic Graphics are a San Francisco-based start-up who were (before the acquisition) working on an accelerator that would make real-time ray-tracing, a reality. They managed to make two generations of products which were more technology demonstrators than real-world products, but their FPGA chips worked.

President Obama did what he does best at his State of the Union speech, talked. Obama can say a lot, and not really mean it. He comes across as this beacon of light that is going to introduce change, but nothing really changes. He allows no reform, employs half of Wall St, ex-bankers and ex-CIA to be his left and right-hand men and women.

Anyway, he has laid out his plans for an economic recovery where he references the technology sector and said:

VLC was one of the first open source media players to be capable of playing back encrypted DVD's, and it has now become the first to bring Blu-ray playback capability, too.

But wait, playback of unencrypted Blu-ray ISOs and folder structures has been possible without menus since the version 1.2 release of VLC. The biggest change are the AACS keys database, and how to get it integrated with the VLC installation.

The AACS keys will never be an official releases of VLC, as it enables copy protection circumvention. But, this is definitely a great move for not just VLC, but Blu-ray.

MegaUpload was taken down a few days ago, as we and many other websites, news sites and even TV had talked about or posted. In between all of this little did anyone realise, he was a near pro Modern Warfare 3 player.

He wasn't in a serious clan or fight in scrims or matches, but he was the No. 1 player in the world for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Kim Dotcom's gamer name was "MEGARACER", and whilst he has been in custody, Arazos took his place and knocked MEGARACER down to No. 2.

On New Years Eve, MEGARACER won the fight of No. 1 position, but Azaros soon overtook him with 9.09 million points on the MW3 leaderboard, leaving MEGARACER with just 9.05 million points. Azaros has 181,800 kills and 63,418 deaths, with a kill/death ration (KDR) of 2.87. MEGARACER on the other hand has 180,980 kills and 86,241 deaths backed up by a KDR of only 2.10.

Yes, you read that right. Much Different, a Swedish-based, non-profit organisation have given themselves quite the goal. A 1000 player FPS battle, which isn't even a full game, but a browser-based FPS title.

It is called "Man Vs. Machine" and is a game that:

It seems rumors of the next-gen Microsoft console is getting the most talk lately, with more news of the Xbox 720/Next console from "sources close to the project" that told IGN.

There were initial reports that the next-gen console from Microsoft would sport the new GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture that is found in the newly-released AMD Radeon HD 7900-Series, but it seems that the console might tap some of the 6000-Series of GPUs.

IGN's sources claim it will use a Radeon HD 6670-like GPU, which offers support for DirectX 11, multi-display output, 3D and 1080p HD output. In "real terms", this would allow the next-gen Xbox's graphics processing power to be nearly six times as powerful as the Xbox 360, and just "20-percent greater performance than Nintendo's forthcoming console, the Wii U."

Battlefield 3's Community Manager, Daniel Matros has said that there is "new stuff" coming for Battlefield 3. What would he mean by "new stuff", well, he has said that new content was being created, but the actual announcement won't be for a few weeks yet.

Matros tweeted:

In a strange turn of events, AMD have shown off the MSI WindPad 110W tablet, where it was running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) at CES just recently. The WindPad 110W sports a Z-01 APU (two x86 cores at 1.0GHz, Radeon HD 6250 graphics).

2GB of RAM is also featured. Things didn't go too smoothly with the MSI WindPad 110W and Android 4.0, where occasional freezes were experienced, but considering its a work in progress, things should get better over time. For people that want to try this out on their MSI WindPad 110W, you can download the Android 4.0 for Brazos ISO, here.

If you do, let us know how you go with your MSI/AMD and Android 4.0 ventures, it will be most interesting. Remember that downloading an experimental update is just that, experimental. We cannot be blamed for any damage to your device, no matter how fun it seems to do.

Samsung have today released two new firmware updates for their SSD 830 Series of solid-state drives. The first update, named CXM02B1Q, was released two weeks ago, but due to CES, no one really noticed it.

The release notes state that the update fixes a BSOD or hang issue when waking the computer up from hibernation mode. The 830 Series has been said to be one of the most reliable SATA 6Gb/s SSDs, with the issue not affecting all users, it still affects some. Samsung also claim that the update fixes partition issues with some enclosures and laptops.

The second update, named CXM03B1Q, was released last Thursday and it's identical to the earlier update, but sports improved compatibility and stability of the update tool. If you want to grab the latest firmware for the Samsung 830, download it here. As always, do so at your own risk and perform data backups beforehand.

Been obsessively playing Skyrim since launch like most people? Want to keep on that bleeding-edge, well, Bethesda have been kind enough to release the latest 1.4 beta patch for Skyrim and have made it available through Steam.

Bethesda have warned people of the update, with "apply the update at your own risk." In order to apply the update, you'll need to check your Steam settings then opt-in to the Skyrim beta listed there. Bethesda recommend backing up your save games just in case you lose them, and the resulting after effects of which would be complete rage black-out.

Details on how to apply the update are here. And below I've listed a full list of fixes and goodies, there's a lot:

The average annual salary of a Silicon Valley technology worker has surpassed the $100,000 mark this year. Tech-jobs website operator Dice Holdings Inc. has said that salaries for software and other engineering professionals in California's Silicon Valley rose 5.2-percent to an average of $104,195 last year.

This beat the average 2-percent increase to $81,327 in tech-workers' salaries nationwide. It was also the first time since Dice began the salary survey in 2001 that the numbers broke the $100,000 mark, said Tom Silver, a Dice senior vice president. It comes at a time where companies such as Facebook Inc., Zynga Inc., and Twitter Inc., that have reignited the web boom.

Some companies have gone public, too, with LinkedIn Corp. and Zynga hitting IPOs and Facebook is eyeing an IPO soon, too. Their success has made a domino effect on new start-ups, which has then ignited a hiring war for software engineers and others.

Windows 8 is set to make it easier than ever for users to manage their Wi-Fi and mobile connections, with group program manager on Microsoft's devices and networking team, Billy Anders, publishing a post on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 blog, that outlines steps taken to improve the wireless connectivity experience.

Mobile broadband is being integrated alongside standard Wi-Fi in Windows 8. In Windows 7, it was included, but there were several steps required to be taken before the mobile device could connect, such as installing third-party drivers and software. Microsoft are removing that annoying step, by working with mobile broadband hardware partners to develop a universal driver that will work with all mobile devices and eliminate the need for additional drivers or software.

Windows 8 will include a new networks settings menu that allows you to turn off individual radios (Bluetooth, mobile broadband, Wi-Fi) or disable them all at once with the new airplane mode. This native radio management is said to eliminate conflicts and confusion that is often introduced when third-party manufacturers add their own connection software.

We're not even finished with the first month of 2012 and we are already experiencing some seriously powerful stuff happening to us because of one of the most important things we, humans, require to live: our Sun, our Star. The Sun, at around 0359 UT on January 23, from sunspot 1402 erupted and produced a long-duration M9-class solar flare.

The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being classed an X-flare, the most powerful there can be. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's most extreme ultraviolet flare, below:

The resulting coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetic field at 0617 UT on January 22 and according to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME strongly compressed Earth's magnetic field and briefly exposed satellites in geosynchronous orbit to solar wind plasma. The effects of this will last roughly 24 hours, where Earth's magnetic field reverberates from the impact. This causes bright auroras to be seen around the arctic circle. Bjørn Jørgensen observed this display from Tromsø, Norway:

Originally, this was going to be my "Download of the Day", but I figure that this would only be applicable to a small percentage of users compared to what has now become Download of the Day. Think of this as "Download of the Day 1.5". TRIM Enabler 2.0 for OS X Lion is now available.

What makes this release special? Well, usually TRIM is reserved on Lion for Apple SSDs. Non-Apple SSDs don't get the TRIM goodness within OS X Lion. Older TRIM enablers required Terminal usage, and knowledge on how to use it. Oskar "Cindori" Groth developed an app called TRIM Enabler. The app has hit version 2.0 and is now compatible with OS X Lion. Version 1.x worked in Lion, but included an old kext from Snow Leopard that caused worse performance for some users.

TRIM Enabler 2.0 patches said kext file for you and repairs permissions, something that would normally require the user to do manually through a Terminal-based method. TRIM Enabler also supports S.M.A.R.T. monitoring on some SSDs, allowing the user to see lifetime reads, and the amount of retired blocks, for example.

Network Attached Storage heroes, Thecus have released the new V5.02.02 firmware which adds new features, protocol updates, and of course, the usual tweaking. The new update is available for all V5-compatible models.

Quick access models gets a nice upgrade, where there is now the possibility to add an extra button on the login screen where you can choose the desired module and login with the proper user account. Third-party developers can now set their own icon if they wish.

A handy feature included in V5.02.02 firmware is the ability to back up all local users, groups and permissions. You can save them on a RAID volume and restore when required. There's also the ability to export them to another NAS if required. General upgrades and tweaks are below:

With my beautiful 10-month-old daughter getting multiple teeth at once, it felt right comparing the issues between 28nm and teething. Onto the news! We all know transitioning from an older fabrication to something newer, better, and more exciting can be, well, hard. It's being reported that both TSMC and GlobalFoundaries are both experiencing serious yield issues with their 28nm process nodes, according to Mike Bryant, technology analyst at Future Horizons.

This is reportedly causing a rash of non-working wafers, to the point of having nothing working with some chip designs submitted for production. The problem seems to stem from pressure of bringing these new products to the market, rather than a problem with the technology itself. It takes time, something they don't have, and without said time, they can't iron out all of the issues and they're getting stuck.

Bryant says:

In 2011, Google shut down their Google Labs' doors, leaving many, disappointed. Popular app "Android App Inventor" was handed over to MIT, as well as a decently sized donation to help fund a new mobile learning initiative.

What has happened between now and then? Well, behind closed doors, a lot it seems. Google and MIT have just announced the Android App Inventor source code, with both Google and MIT both pleased to announce the initial free and open-source release of App Inventor.

In a blog post on the new MIT website, with app designer Hal Abelson writing:

Apple SVP Paul Schiller took the stage to unveil something Apple has been cooking up for a while, and a long-rumored "education-centric announcement", which has morphed into iBook 2, where Schiller calls it a "new textbook experience for the iPad".

Roger Rosner, Apple's VP of productivity software has explained how it will work. Textbooks appear on the shelf, you then tap to launch. The books occupy the full screen and can be paired with embedded video content and introductory movies. Multi-touch rears its head and can be used to navigate through the textbook pages and can manipulate integrated 3D models for biology books, for example.

Rotating books allows users to focus on text, and there are built-in, linked glossaries and tablets of content to make navigation simple and accessible, as well as everything is searchable. iBooks 2 also includes highlighting, note-taking and interactive Q&A sections at the end of each chapter, which also provide immediate feedback: no more hunting for a key in a separate book or appendix to see how you did it.

Intel have today reported a full-year revenue of an astounding $54 billion, with an operating income of $17.5 billion, net income of $12.9 billion, and EPS of $2.39. The thing associated with all of those huge numbers? They're all records. Intel had an amazing year in 2011.

Intel generated approximately $21 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $4.1 billion and used $14.1 billion to repurchase 642 million shares of stock. Q4 2011 saw Intel post a revenue of $13.9 billion, operating revenue of $4.6 billion, net income of $3.4 billion and EPS of 64 cents. Q1 2012 has been good so far, with their business outlook mentioning revenue sitting at $12.8 billion, plus or minus $500 billion.

Full-year 2012 details are interesting, with stand-outs like Research & Development (R&D) expected to hit $10.1 billion. With Intel heading into the smartphone market, that $10.1 billion could go a very long way. With their lead bulldozing the CPU competition, Intel don't really even need to release something that much faster to stay on top. But, if they slow down, it might give AMD enough time to catch up.

In September 2011, IDC and Gartner predicted that Windows Phone would take second position, knocking Apple from their place by 2015. Windows Phone head of marketing Achim Berg called that prediction "conservative". iSuppli have chimed in, predicting that Windows Phone will have a 16.7-percent market share by 2015, while Apple's market share will decline from the current 18-percent to 16.6-percent by 2015.

Overtake generally means to catch up, look over, smile and wave as you go faster, get ahead of them and continue going... but, iSuppli predict by 2015 that Windows Phone will have a 16.7-percent share of the market, and iOS will have 16.6-percent, this is just .1-percentage different. 3 letters, starts with L, ends in L.

What I don't understand from these numbers, is that it doesn't account for the fact that there will be no new entries into the market. Before Apple introduced the iPhone, if you had told me that they'd be where they are today, five years ago, I would've thrown an orange at you and laughed. But now, they are the company to compare to, funnily enough. Right now, I just can't see Windows Phone taking that much market share, but I can see Google dominating the next few years if they continue the path they've taken.