Microsoft Bing search engine now has more than 20% market share in US

Michael Hatamoto | Internet & Websites | Apr 18, 2015 11:56 AM CDT

For the first time since launching in 2009, the Microsoft Bing search engine now has over 20 percent market share of the US desktop search market, according to comScore.

Google still leads the way with 64.4 percent of the increasingly competitive market, while Bing has 20.1 percent - Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other companies are trying to adapt to a growing mobile market.

Bing has been a major effort for Microsoft, which has continually dumped money and development time into Bing. The search engine is now integrated into Xbox, Office, Windows and the Windows Phone, as Microsoft wants to try to lure users away from Google.

Continue reading: Microsoft Bing search engine now has more than 20% market share in US (full post)

Star Wars: Battlefront confirmed to run at 60FPS on both Xbox One, PS4

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Apr 18, 2015 4:05 AM CDT

Star Wars: Battlefront is shaping up to be one of the best-looking games of the year, with the unveiling of the gameplay trailer yesterday, the Star Wars community has been super excited.

We've now found out that Battlefront will be running at 60FPS on both the Xbox One and PS4 thanks to DICE Producer Craig McLeod. He said: "We're making sure, first and foremost, to ensure it runs at 60 frames per second on everything because that's what delivers the best gameplay experience". McLeod continued: "When you couple the talent that we have in the office with the technology and new generation of consoles has allowed us to achieve, that's how you can get these environments that you're seeing which simply wasn't possible before".

The gameplay trailer that the studio released was running at 1080p with 8x MSAA enabled and a very high level of adaptive tessellation has lead to gamers looking at one of the best graphics in a game yet. With a 60FPS target, we should expect no level of MSAA to be used, or at the maximum possibly 2x MSAA on the consoles, and whatever your VGA card is capable of on the PC.

Continue reading: Star Wars: Battlefront confirmed to run at 60FPS on both Xbox One, PS4 (full post)

Qualcomm has made $9.2 billion in royalties from Samsung over 4 years

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Apr 18, 2015 2:38 AM CDT

Samsung released their Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge handsets a little over a week ago now, with Qualcomm feeling the loss of getting its Snapdragon processors into the new handsets.

With the previous Galaxy S smartphones, Samsung has usually had its Exynos processor in certain models, while Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor makes it into another. Not this time around, and rightly so since Qualcomm reportedly asks for 2.5 to 5% of the selling price of every handset that is powered by its Snapdragon processor. This is a big chunk of sales, especially when handsets are spilling over the $1000 mark.

Samsung has thus saved itself many millions of dollars by opting for its own Exynos processor in the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, and after giving Qualcomm $9.2 billion in royalties over four years, this has come to an end. Qualcomm continues to expand its pile of cash, which is hovering at around the $30 billion mark right now. Most of this $30 billion has been made from the patent and licensing royalties, and not just from its processors - a smart move by Qualcomm.

Continue reading: Qualcomm has made $9.2 billion in royalties from Samsung over 4 years (full post)

'Star Wars: Battlefront' in-game trailer released

Ben Gourlay | Gaming | Apr 17, 2015 8:02 PM CDT

Fresh from the 2015 'Star Wars' Celebration in Anaheim which saw the release of the second teaser from 'The Force Awakens', and the first tantalising render of a Stormtrooper, Electronic Arts have now released the first trailer for the much anticipated game, which promises to originate from "game engine footage".

DICE also made the interesting admission that the game omits a story narrative, but hinges on separate missions, including locales from the original 'Star Wars' trilogy. EA will make available a free downloadable content pack called the 'Battle of Jakku'; the new desert planet glimpsed in both 'Force Awakens' trailers (previously assumed to be Tatooine) and which will serve as a prequel to the film.

The latest 'Battlefront' is the third in the franchise, and the first in a decade. The title will also mark the first 'Star Wars' game to be released for current-gen consoles. 'Battlefront' is scheduled for release on November 17, 2015 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Continue reading: 'Star Wars: Battlefront' in-game trailer released (full post)

Hacker group from China has launched coordinated attacks for a decade

Michael Hatamoto | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Apr 17, 2015 1:28 PM CDT

A hacker group with support from the Chinese government has operated for more than 10 years without being detected, able to compromise information from companies and reporters, according to FireEye. Many of the attacks started with social engineering, with victims unknowingly installing the Mysterious Eagle malware onto PCs - so the hacker group could remotely monitor and control the compromised systems.

The APT30 group has been in operation from 2004 and was able to collect information "about journalists, dissidents and political developments in relation to China targeting government and military organizations, and targeting economic sectors of interest to China's economy."

The Chinese government has long been accused of funding cybercriminal groups aimed at compromising western targets - much of the attention is focused on the US government and companies with US customers.

Continue reading: Hacker group from China has launched coordinated attacks for a decade (full post)

Cybersecurity expert applauds work done by ethical hackers

Michael Hatamoto | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Apr 17, 2015 10:43 AM CDT

Most headlines featuring hackers tend to focus on cybercriminals trying to breach security protocols for criminal gain - but there is a growing effort to support "white hat" hackers working in an ethnical manner to find security bugs.

"There are actually a lot of good hackers out there that are revealing vulnerabilities and bugs in technology that we all rely on," said Keren Elazari, analyst for GigaOM Research, while speaking during the Atlantic Security Conference, in a statement to CBC's "Mainstreet" program. "A lot of companies are still kind of reluctant to open their doors to hackers... that's something I'm trying to change."

Google, Facebook, Tesla, and other companies rely on so-called "bug bounty" programs that provide cash and other incentives for coders. It can be difficult for internal programmers to try to work out bugs and vulnerabilities in their own software, so having outside help can be critical.

Continue reading: Cybersecurity expert applauds work done by ethical hackers (full post)

Gartner: Security analytics could be crucial for breach detection

Michael Hatamoto | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Apr 17, 2015 9:45 AM CDT

Even with companies spending more on cybersecurity efforts, data security breaches are at an all-time high, the Gartner research group recently said.

However, these high-profile breaches are finally sounding alarm bells among C-level executives - and they may be desperate to spend money - but aren't really sure what they are buying and trying to implement.

The number of security information and event management (SIEM) solutions leads the way in regard to cybersecurity, collecting, saving and analyzing security data. However, trying to sort through all of that data remains rather confusing, but security analytics technology is maturing.

Continue reading: Gartner: Security analytics could be crucial for breach detection (full post)

Former Canadian spy boss says cyberattacks are a 'weapon of war'

Michael Hatamoto | Hacking, Security & Privacy | Apr 17, 2015 7:30 AM CDT

Cybersecurity is a complicated issue that has serious ramifications for the United States and other countries that aren't focusing enough attention on the matter. More national governments are developing programs to attack political rivals, in an effort to steal information and cause data breaches.

"Cyber is a weapon of war," said Ray Boisvert, former head of intelligence for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in a statement to The Register. "The NASDAQ and Home Depot hacks are examples of this."

There are around 60 countries involved in various forms of cyberespionage, including terrorist groups like Hezbollah, according to US assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security, Eric Rosenbach. Boisvert thinks that number is accurate, though much of the attention is focused on Russia and China.

Continue reading: Former Canadian spy boss says cyberattacks are a 'weapon of war' (full post)

AMD says it'll reveal its next-gen video cards next month

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Apr 17, 2015 6:09 AM CDT

We have previously reported that AMD would be unveiling its next generation GPUs in Q2 2015, which ends on May 31st, but we've just heard some news during AMD's Q1 2015 conference call directly from AMD CEO Lisa Su herself.

During the call, Su said that AMD will talk about their upcoming graphics products launches "later this quarter", with Su reiterating that the company "would like to see some regain of share in both the desktop and the notebook business". As for AMD's plans for 2H 2015, Su had the following to say: "In the second half of the year, I think we would like to see our products take a strong position as well as hopefully the market gets stronger as well".

Continue reading: AMD says it'll reveal its next-gen video cards next month (full post)

Cyanogen and Microsoft announce a strategic partnership

Anthony Garreffa | Software & Apps | Apr 17, 2015 4:43 AM CDT

Cyanogen has announced a new strategic partnership with Microsoft, something that would see the company "integrate popular Microsoft services across the Cyanogen Operating System".

The new partnership will see Cyanogen integrating and distributing Microsoft's consumer apps and services "across core categories, including productivity, messaging, utilities, and cloud-based services". The press release adds "As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will create native integrations on Cyanogen OS, enabling a powerful new class of experiences".

Cyanogen's CEO, Kirt McMaster, said: "People around the world use Cyanogen's operating system and popular Microsoft services to engage with what matters most to them on their mobile devices. This exciting partnership with Microsoft will enable us to bring new kinds of integrated services to mobile users in markets around the world".

Continue reading: Cyanogen and Microsoft announce a strategic partnership (full post)

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