Sony buys up Toshiba's image sensor fab for $155 million
Amid recent financial woes and scandals, Japanese electronics company Toshiba today announced that it has sold its image sensor business to Sony for 19 billion yen ($155 million).
Starting in April 2016, Sony will take over Toshiba's semiconductor fabrication facility in Oita, Japan, which can ship up to 12,500 300mm wafers a month. Along with the Oita facility, Sony will take in all equipment and 1,100 employees who will now operate under Sony's own Semiconductor Corporation. The facility will focus "primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors."
This move sees Toshiba effectively pull out of the image sensor market. Negotiations for the takeover started back in October, and Nikkei notes that Toshiba turned right to Sony due to past business.
Continue reading: Sony buys up Toshiba's image sensor fab for $155 million (full post)
Konami forbids Hideo Kojima from attending The Game Awards 2015
The controversy between estranged Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and Japanese games publisher Konami continues to roil across the games industry, culminating in a new incident at this year's The Game Awards showcase.
Metal Gear Solid V won Best Action/Adventure game at The Game Awards 2015, but the celebration was short-lived when gamers realized that Hideo Kojima wasn't in attendance. According to TGA 2015 host Geoff Keighley, Kojima was advised not to attend the show or accept any on-stage awards at the behest of Konami's lawyers.
"As you noticed, Hideo Kojima is not here with us tonight and I want to tell you a little about that," Keighley said after the winners were announced. "Mr. Kojima had every intention of being with us tonight, but unfortunately he was informed by a lawyer representing Konami just recently that he would not be allowed to travel to tonight's awards ceremony to accept any awards. He's still under an employment contract. And it's disappointing and it's inconceivable to me that an artist like Hideo would not be allowed to come here and celebrate with his peers and his fellow teammates."
Continue reading: Konami forbids Hideo Kojima from attending The Game Awards 2015 (full post)
'Game of Thrones' season 6 trailer teases Jon Snow
XXIt may or not signal the return of fan favourite 'Game of Thrones' character Jon Snow, but the newly released tease for the show's sixth season does give a pretty good hint.
The brief teaser flashes through some of the more memorable scenes in the series first five seasons, before a shot of the seemingly lifeless Jon Snow that we saw in the season five finale.
Hitting screens in April 2016, the next batch of ten episodes will not be based on a George R.R. Martin plot, having exhausted all the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books in the last season. Instead, screenwriters have crafted the plot through discussions Martin, but may very well deviate from the material in the forthcoming sixth novel.
Continue reading: 'Game of Thrones' season 6 trailer teases Jon Snow (full post)
Vimeo announces 4K adaptive streaming, rolls out to select users
Up until now, Vimeo has been allowing its Pro members to upload 4K videos, with the video sharing company now allowing some users 4K adaptive streaming. Vimeo's 4K streaming will roll out to the rest of the world in Q1 2016.
The company has pushed out support for 4K streaming across its site, and its entire catalogue of apps. This rollout features support for adaptive streaming, where your Internet connection will be battling it out for allowing up to 4K (2160p) streaming - similar to how YouTube does 4K streaming right now.
Vimeo's rollout of 4K support will include the streaming player on Vimeo.com, with videos embedded on other sites, Vimeo on Demand, and all of the apps on iOS, Apple TV, Android, Amazon and Roku.
Continue reading: Vimeo announces 4K adaptive streaming, rolls out to select users (full post)
Critics vote 'Mad Max: Fury Road' as best film of 2015
Expectations were high for the first 'Mad Max' film in 20 years, but who would have thought that 'Fury Road' would end up being the darling of film critics? While the film enjoys a stellar 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the real surprise is that the film has taken out the 2015 Best Film award from the prestigious National Board of Review.
According to Vanity Fair, the award board known for favouring stuffy critic-bait in the past have embraced blockbusters in 2015, also awarding Ridley Scott with Best Director for 'The Martian' and Best Screenplay to Quentin Tarantino for the upcoming 'The Hateful Eight'.
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Skype 7.16 for Windows adds media sharing toolbar, URL previews
Skype 7.16 for Windows launches today, and with it comes two practical new features: a media toolbar and URL previews.
The toolbar is a compact set of buttons next to the message window that let you easily share photos, files, video messages, contacts, and emoticons. Happily, the toolbar will minimize as you type so as not to be intrusive. It can be expanded anytime by clicking the paper clip menu.
Amusingly, the Skype team says "long, ugly links" are now a thing of the past thanks to the addition of URL previews. Familiar to most anyone who's used Facebook Messenger, they simply give you a brief look at what's behind a link, helping you decide if want to click it or not.
Continue reading: Skype 7.16 for Windows adds media sharing toolbar, URL previews (full post)
MacFarlane confirms 'Family Guy' movie coming soon
'Family Guy' creator and voice artist Seth MacFarlane has directed a few feature films now, with 'Ted' and it's 2015 sequel, along with last year's 'A Million Ways to Die in The West' but now the talent looks to be returning to his roots and helming a feature film version of the long running animated hit. Responding to a fan question via Twitter, MacFarle simply confirms the film will be coming "soon".
In 2012 MacFarlane told ScreenRant that "We do know what the 'Family Guy' movie will be. 'The Simpsons' movie, I thought, was hilarious, but the one criticism I would have is that it's a story they probably could've done on TV. There could've been an episode that had that plotline.... That's the challenge with animation. You pretty much can do any story you want, so what is the reason for the movie? We finally hit on the answer to that question and it will be something that would be impossible to do on TV."
Continue reading: MacFarlane confirms 'Family Guy' movie coming soon (full post)
AMD to launch next-gen 'Arctic Islands' GPU in mid-2016 on 14/16nm
We all know it's coming, but AMD is expected to launch their next-gen 'Arctic Islands' GPUs in mid-2016. These new cards will be powered by the much faster HBM2 technology, driving up to and over 1TB/sec memory bandwidth - up from the 512GB/sec found on the Fury cards, powered by HBM1.
AMD's new cards will launch on the 14nm/16nm FinFET process, with the GPUs including a huge 2x performance per watt increase over the previous generation cards. With multiple parts powering the new cards, a new architecture, HBM2 and a huge process shrink, I have some big expectations on next-gen GPUs. AMD has recently changed things up with spinning off its GPU business into Radeon Technologies Group, as well as the big changes with Radeon Software.
The flagship GPU in the Arctic Islands family is the exciting Greenland GPU, which is rumored to feature up to 18 billion transistors, and up to 32GB of HBM2.
Continue reading: AMD to launch next-gen 'Arctic Islands' GPU in mid-2016 on 14/16nm (full post)
Nintendo says its next-gen NX console is 'unique and different'
Nintendo is starting to talk more about its next-gen console, currently codenamed 'NX', with Nintendo's new president, Tatsumi Kimishima talking with Time recently.
Kimishima said: "As far as NX goes, I've said it's different and obviously a new experience. If you look back to the beginning of our conversation today, we talked about the transition from Wii hardware to the Wii U hardware and how difficult it is to explain to the consumer base what is different and new about the new hardware. It's difficult to convince them to switch from their current platform to the next platform".
If you thought that the NX would be a new, next-gen Wii or Wii U, you're wrong. Kimishima squashed those rumors, telling Time: "That being said, I can assure you we're not building the next version of Wii or Wii U. It's something unique and different. It's something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base".
Continue reading: Nintendo says its next-gen NX console is 'unique and different' (full post)
Android co-founder looks to create his own smartphone company
Described as a crucial part of Android before the Google takeover, Andry Rubin was the co-founder of this brilliant technology and is now interested in working on the hardware side of things.
He's currently recruiting fellow staff for this endeavor, says The Information, but overall the information is quire vague. Reports, or Rubin himself, have not yet confirmed any substantial information, with people left to speculate if this man will be destined to fund, fun, own or operate this new company.
After leaving Google last year, Rubin has raised $300 million for 'Playground', further becoming a partner at Redpoint Ventures earlier in 2015. Some are speculating that the only gap in the market for this new brand would be high-end devices, but we will have to wait for confirmation from the man himself.
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