Latest News - Page 3096

Amazon lose money on each Kindle Fire sold, as hardware and manufacturing costs of the Kindle Fire exceed its retail pricing, but somehow, Amazon aren't losing money on it. How does Amazon conduct this sorcery? Well, with every Kindle sold is another annuity revenue stream for the company, further strengthening its core retail business.

According to RBC, each Kindle Fire generates more than $100 in additional income, which makes up for the $2-$3 that Amazon make per device. RBC Capital analyst, Ross Sandler, said in research notes to clients:

Google have released some financial results that might interest some, with Q4 011 and fiscal year ending December 31, 2011 being released. CEO of Google, Larry Page, says:

$10 billion revenue for Q4 is very impressive, up 29-percent. Google reported revenues of $10.58 billion for the quarter ending December 31, 2011, an increase of 25-percent when compared to the same quarter in 2010. Google-owned sites generated revenues of $7.29 billion, or 69-percent of total revenues. This is an increase of 15-percent year-over-year. Google's partner sites generated revenues of $2.88 billion, or 27-percent of revenues. This too is a 15-percent increase year-over-year.

AMD have had quite a good launch with their Graphics Core Next bizzo, the Radeon HD 7970. But Team Green have a juicy new rumor today, that they might release their Kepler-based products early, and not in the earlier-reported March-April timeframe.

It would launch as early as next month with reports coming from ChipHell.com, where they say it will launch in February. The GTX 680 is rumored to sport the same performance as the AMD Radeon HD 7970, with a clock speed of 780MHz, but only 2GB of video memory. NVIDIA seem to be cheap on the video memory these days, which could indicate that the new cards might not do multiple monitors from the single card.

AMD's always thinking a few steps ahead, so throwing 3GB on the cards is great for Eyefinity users, and the 4K monitor support. NVIDIA only using 2GB is a worry, especially for 3-screen setups, or 3D Vision Surround setups that suck up that RAM like a GPU vacuum cleaner. Time will tell, and as usual, enjoy some TweakTown Salt.

Megaupload was taken down today, with the FBI, DOJ and local authorities across the world arresting people involved. But, those people should not feel alone, Anonymous has their back.

Anonymous have begun an attack on the website for the White House, after raping the sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, and Motion Picture Association of America. Just hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went dark, news broke that Megaupload was taken down by federal agents. Less an an hour after the DoJ and Universal sites came crashing down, the RIAA website went offline, just before 6pm EST, the government's Copyright.gov went down.

It didn't stop there, thirty minutes later, the BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) website was also stripped down. MPAA.org (which I have just tried) is dark right now, another "victory" for Anonymous. MPAA is spear-headed by Chris Dodd, who fully supports both PIPA and SOPA legislation. Anonymous operative, Barrett Brown, has stated that "more is coming" and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a join effort with others to "damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA".

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down one of the world's most popular file-sharing websites today, MegaUpload.com. They also announced the arrest of four people behind a "global crackdown against the suspected online pirates", reported The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted seven people and two companies in total, in the indictment, Megaupload and a company associated with it are accused of making $175 million while simultaneously causing approximately half a billion dollars in copyright infringement. The seven people indicted are: the site's founder, Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz), who holds residency in New Zealand and Hong Kong. Employees Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, Julius Bencko, Finn Batato, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, and Andrus Nomm.

New Zealand authorities arrested the above-mentioned four people, Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk, with the others not yet arrested. The indictment states that the accused are part of a, and get this, I'll quote it for effect:

Earlier today Shane Baxtor and I ventured out to the ECS headquarters here in Taipei where we were given exclusive access to look at the Taiwanese motherboard company's range of upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge motherboards that are due to come out onto the market sometime in late March or April as far as we can tell.

In the video above we spent most of our time focusing on ECS' most high-end Ivy Bridge motherboard, the Z77HS-AX Black Extreme. This is a full size ATX motherboard with plenty of the bells and whistles ticked including onboard Bluetooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi as well as native USB 3.0 provided by the Intel Ivy Bridge chipset. It also gets some other nice goodies such as onboard power and reset buttons as well as a heatpipe cooling design which looks like it should do an adequate job of keeping things under control in the temperature department.

Some of the big features of this board is the inclusion of not two, but three PCI-E x16 3.0 slots which allows for SLI and CrossFireX support. The first slot is 16 lanes while the other two other eight lanes - ECS was able to achieve the extra lanes by adding in an additional chip which is said to cost $30 alone. As far as memory goes, you get support for DDR3 dual channel and in early testing so far, ECS engineers told us that they have been able to reach over 2600MHz DDR so far.

Facebook have introduced apps for Timeline, in the form of Foodspotting, Foodily, Ticketmaster, Pinterest, Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Kobo, Gogobot, TripAdvisor, and more. This allows you to enhance your timeline with apps that help tell your story, in the way you want it to look.

Once an app is added, you can update your timeline with activities as they happen. For example, if you like design, shopping or fashion, you can add the Pinterest or Pose apps, to make your favorite items part of your timeline. There are other apps that make your timeline, pop, such as food-centric apps and travel-centric apps.

Facebook promise that there'll soon be apps for all interests, which will launch over time. After you've added an app, you can remove posts directly from timeline, as well as edit your settings from your personal Activity Log. It seems Facebook is slowly becoming an internal Internet. Just like Step Brothers, there's SO MANY ACTIVITIES!

I have to admit, I scour the entire interwebs for news, virtually each and every day and up until now, I did not even know about Orkut. Orkut is a Google-owned social network, that gets overshadowed by its own rival, Google+ and other players such as Facebook. Orkut is still massively popular in India and Brazil, where more than 80-percent of its 66 million active users come from, as of October 2011.

Google have just released a native Orkut client for the iPhone, which is available for free from the App Store and includes the usual feature set like updating your status, and checking your scraps and messages to browsing your friends' profiles and uploading photos.

A description of Orkut for iOS:

Bit of a mix-up for the news today. The SOPA protests are on today, and have been for quite a few hours now, with Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and other sites all either showing a protest, or completely going dark for 24 hours.

The protest is of course in regards to SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act which Congress were debating. On top of this, there is PIPA, the Protect IP Act. Today marks a big day for not only the Internet, but you, me, and everyone in between. If SOPA is to get in, it is more or less the end of the Internet as we know it. It would still exist, but it would be heavily modified. Think of it like, if the Internet servers were in two places, North Korea and China, with a huge firewall, and if the dummies in Congress were the managers, and the MPAA gave out some requirements.

Yes, that's a little over-exaggeration, but it's pretty close. This news is just a "we here at TweakTown oppose SOPA/PIPA and any other stupid bill Congress want to push upon the people", and a bit of a tip in case anyone has missed previous news posts in regards to SOPA and PIPA on our site.

Alienware have started 2012 by letting lose their X51 desktop. The X51 is a slim gaming PC that is designed to orient itself vertically, or horizontally on the desktop. Even the Alienware logo properly rotates depending on the positioning, nice touch!

The Alienware X51 sports a Core 13 or Core i5, a slot-loading optical drive and an option for Blu-ray. The X51 can be configured to take 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. GPU wise, it sports a full-size NVIDIA GeForce GT 545, upgradeable to the GTX 555, an external power supply in both 240W and 330W versions.

Connectivity on the Alienware X51 includes HDMI 1.4, on-board Wi-Fi, USB 3.0, and digital 7.1 surround sound. Additionally, the computer's accent colors can be modified with the Alienware Command Center software. Customers can place orders right now, starting at just $699.

Overclocking kills chips, we all know it does. It's never happened to me, because I'm l337, y0. But, it can happen and if it does, under Intel's new protection plan, you'll actually be covered. Intel already have a standard three-year warranty on its processors, but are now launching a new initiative aimed at protecting those who feel the need, the need for speed.

Intel call it the Performance Tuning Protection Plan, which gives you a free replacement CPU if you burn or blow yours up. It has started at four resellers today: CyberPower, Scan Computers, Altech Computers as well as Canada Computers and Electronics. The service is offered exclusively for K, X, and LGA2011-socketed boxed processors, with prices varying dependant on the chip.

For the i5-2500K, i7-2600K, i7-2700K, i7-3920K, and i7-3960X, it will cost you $20, $25, $25, $35, and $35, respectively. Not bad considering those chips are worth either hundreds, or over $1000 (in some countries). There are conditions, though. Intel only cover the chip for one replacement, and the failure must happen within its standard three-year warranty. You cannot rebuy the plan for the replacement chip, and you cannot buy several plans for a new processor.

Excitement, building... first off, I've just sprinkled down some salt on this news, remember, rumor, rumor, rumor. Nothing is fact in this world until we see, hear, feel or experience it for ourselves, until then it's pure faith. In the technology industry, there are so many insiders, "upstream sources" (still need to get me a few of those), and "leaks".

Today, we have some news from SemiAccurate, that talks of the next-generation Xbox chip, "Oban" that has reportedly just taped out. Charlie goes into some serious detail, and for as much flak he gets, he is right a fair bit of the time, and I enjoy his style, so on with the news. It has been reported that the new Xbox Next/720 "Oban" chip is in initial production with sources at a foundary confirming that the Oban wafters starting running in the final days of last year.

Sources at Redmond, when questioned, responded with "Who the f*&$ told you that? I am going to f#*&ing rip someone's head off". You don't say that if it's rumors, that aren't true, so SemiAccurate could be onto something here. More sources as Microsoft said that the initial order for Oban chips was for 10K wafers. Oban is supposedly being built by IBM primarily, which means an x86-based chip is out of the question.

It seems as though Eidos Montreal's kinda-secret-but-kinda-not Thief 4 will sport online capabilities, and be built upon the foundation that is the Unreal Engine 3 graphics engine. This is according to the resume's of some of the developers, which were uncovered on LinkedIn, and were posted on NeoGAF.

One resume belonged to Colas Fievet, an online programmer for Thief 4. His duties between August 2009 and December 2010 included "networking, gameplay, debugging", plus "online and offline tools on Thief 4". The previous Thief games never included online play, so Thief 4 with online play would be a first of its kind for the series.

Other CVs referenced Thief 4 running on Unreal Engine 3, which is a surprise considering Eidos Montreal used the Tomb Raider engine for their popular Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Other information included mentions of "shops, escape gates, public zones", and that the game will include a "hub".

EA really want Origin to work, Battlefield 3 was good enough to swing millions of players into the arms of EA's latest digital distribution service, and now their latest RPG, Mass Effect 3 joins the ranks. BioWare have confirmed Mass Effect 3 will not be made available on Steam, and that on the PC, it will require an Origin install for all versions.

BioWare's community manager, Chris Priestly, said on the company's official forums:

Another game, another PC kick in the nads. Syndicate, from Starbreeze Studios and EA, arrives next month and to tie you over, they've released a four-player co-op demo. The Syndicate preview allows you and up to three of your friends to play one of the game's nine co-op missions (called "Western Europe") in its entirety with an objective to infiltrate a rival syndicate, Cayman Global.

The mission requires you to take out a Colonel, take some technology blueprints and force his people back across the Atlantic. The demo is available for a limited time starting this month and will be made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace (for gold members only) and the PlayStation Network. No word on whether there'll be a PC version.

My take is, this will be a flop on PC. If it were ported well, we'd have a demo, but, as usual, we don't. In other news, Good Old Games has announced it will start selling the original Syndicate from 1993, starting this Thursday. Pricing will be set at $6. GOG are giving away copies of the game as part of a contest that calls for participants to create their own team name and method of operation:

Symantec has acquired archiving company LifeOffice, in a deal worth $115 million. Symantec increases its cloud-computing power to fight the battle and be more of an on-premise and software as a service (SaaS) company. Most traditional enterprise-software companies are scooping up cloud-based companies, with SAP purchasing SuccessFactors, and Oracle taking RightNow.

Symantec said in a statement that it will use LiveOffice to bolster its information-governance unit, as LiveOffice provides a cloud-based archiving system. LiveOffice and Symantec were partners before the deal, which it has now fused into one. Symantec said in a blog post:

Research in Motion, which I'm sure you are aware are popular for their BlackBerry devices, have been going through some rough times lately. I'm sure virtually everyone working at RIM hate Apple and Google for coming in and creating something which took off quickly, and continues to grow at unprecedented rates. I'm talking of iOS and Android-powered devices.

RIM have slowly been sinking and it's been reported that they are eyeing off every single option they can think of, "in an effort to reverse a negative trend that is approaching a boiling point for investors," says BGR. RIM have reportedly favored an all-out purchase of one or more divisions, or even the entire company. RIM want Samsung to do it, but just after the story went to air, Samsung denied it.

Samsung didn't just slap RIM and walk away, as they are considering licensing RIM's software, or purchasing a portion of RIM's assets. This is better than nothing for RIM.

Windows 8 requirements are quite interesting, more interesting are the details inside for "device requirements". If you want to check them out, here's the link. Better get a coffee, energy drink or similar because it's nearly 1000 pages long. Onto the good stuff!

Within Windows have covered the interesting requirements, where Microsoft have stated that there must be five hardware buttons on Windows 8 tablet/convertible PCs, as well as a minimum component set for tablets and convertible PCs.

Microsoft requires '5-point digitizers', which is a minimum. This means it supports at least a hand of fingers on the screen at once. NFC "touch marks" are featured in Windows 8, where any tablet or slate must have a sticker of similar signage telling the user its NFC-capable. Microsoft also require that Windows 8 has the aforementioned 5 button minimum, with those buttons being Power, Rotation lock, Windows Key, Volume up, and Volume down.

Yahoo! Inc. have just announced that Yahoo! co-founder, Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions within the company, effective today. Yang has also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo Japan Corporation and Alibaba Group Holding Limited, also, effective today.

In a latter Yang wrote to the Yahoo! Board Chairman, Roy Bostock, he said:

Fujitsu has been pretty quite when it comes to tablets, but it seems they're about to make a rumble with a product they look to be launching in May of this year. Enter the Fujitsu Stylistic M532, which is powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 System-on-a-Chip (SoC).

The Fujitsu Stylistic M532 was shown off to TechFokus, where they said it sports a 1280x800 display, 16GB of onboard storage, a 3-megapixel front-facing cam, 8-megapixel rear-facer and should carry a $630 price tag. It was shown off with Honeycomb, but when it hits retail it will reportedly have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on it.

So far, Fujitsu haven't really been a player in the tablet market. Things could change for the future, but there's nothing I saw on this tablet that really makes my eyes widen and make my hand hover to my wallet ready to GIVE IT MY MONEY. I guess time will tell.