HTC unveils its Desire Eye smartphone, dual 13-megapixel cameras

HTC has made its Desire Eye smartphone official, confirming that the best selfie-taking smartphone is now here, featuring dual 13-megapixel cameras. That's right, a 13-megapixel camera graces the rear, which isn't too special, but the 13-megapixel up front should have selfie-taking lovers opening their Eyes at this smartphone, geddit?

The new Desire Eye features a 5.2-inch Full HD display, 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB of RAM. 16GB of flash storage expandable by microSD, and then of course, the dual 13-megapixel cameras. Both of the 13-megapixel cameras feature wide-angle lenses, and dual-LED flashes. Stereo BoomSound speakers are found on the Desire Eye, three microphones, a 2,400mAh battery, and Android 4.4.4 KitKat.

HTC wasn't scared of the fact that the new Desire Eye is made from plastic, but it's not cheap according to BGR who attended the Double Exposure event. The site reports that "the Desire Eye has a smooth and sleek design that is surprisingly impressive. There are no seams despite the band of color that surrounds the perimeter of the handset, and it feels good in the hand despite its large size". One of the stand out features on the Desire Eye is the new camera software, which comes with six main add-ons which make the selfie-taking experience, well, better.

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Samsung Begins Production of 3-bit V-NAND Flash Memory - 850 EVO Soon

Chris Ramseyer | Storage | Oct 9, 2014 3:24 AM CDT

Today Samsung announced mass production of 3-bit per cell 3D vertical NAND (TLC V-NAND). This shouldn't come as a surprise since Samsung first started talking about the new TLC version just days after releasing the 850 Pro SSD with MLC V-NAND. Even though the surprise is lost, that doesn't mean this isn't a technical achievement that can profoundly impact the consumer and enterprise cold storage SSD markets.

The press release doesn't mention by name the long rumored 850 EVO SSD but does say that something, maybe even a couple of somethings are coming.

"With the addition of a whole new line of high density SSDs that is both performance- and value-driven, we believe the 3-bit V-NAND will accelerate the transition of data storage devices from hard disk drives to SSDs," said Jaesoo Han, Senior Vice President, Memory Sales & Marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The wider variety of SSDs will increase our product competitiveness as we further expand our rapidly growing SSD business."

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Apple announces October 16 event, says 'It's been way too long'

Apple has announced a new media event scheduled for next week, with the October 16 event to be held at the Town Hall auditorium at Apple's Cupertino-based HQ. The company has now sent out media events, but probably not ComputerBild.de, with the tagline of "It's been way too long".

What can we expect Apple to unveil at the event? We should see some new iPads unveiled, with the iPad Air 2, and maybe a new iPad mini. Updated iMacs should also be introduced, sporting a high-resolution Retina display. We should also see the company tease the final overview of OS X Yosemite, before it hits the public.

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Sharp unveils its new 85-inch 8K TV, with a resolution of 7680x4320

Anthony Garreffa | Displays & Projectors | Oct 9, 2014 12:27 AM CDT

Just as I'm writing an article on Acer's new NVIDIA G-SYNC powered 28-inch 4K monitor, I read about Sharp's new 8K TV that is preparing to enter the market in 2018. This is when Japan Broadcasting Corporation will begin broadcasting content in 8K.

Sharp's 8K-capable TV is a mammoth 85-inch set, with a 120Hz refresh rate, with the company being the first in the world to have an 8K TV that is compliant with NHK's requirements. NHK has been working on 8K, which by the way is a crazy 7680x4320 - four times as many pixels as 4K, and 16x the amount of pixels as 1080p, since 1995.

NHK has plans to start testing 8K Super Hi-Vision broadcasting in 2016, with the first translations of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. NHK will start commercial 8K broadcasting at 7680x4320 with multi-channel audio in 2018. What good is this TV without proper content, apart from TV broadcasts? Well, both Sony and Panasonic are working on a new optical disc technology which will have 300GB of space on it, at least, which is set to be released late next year.

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Man sues Red Bull because the energy drink didn't give him wings

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 9, 2014 12:14 AM CDT

Ever enjoyed a Red Bull, but wondered why you didn't grow wings? Well, so did Benjamin Careathers, who has sued the energy drink company. Careathers filed a lawsuit last year with the US District Court of the South District of New York, arguing that Red Bull mislead him and consumers about their claim that "Red Bull gives you wings", as well as the claims of increased performance, concentration and reaction speed.

His suit argued: "Such deceptive conduct and practices mean that (Red Bull's) advertising and marketing is not just 'puffery,' but is instead deceptive and fraudulent and is therefore actionable". The result of his lawsuit? Red Bull agreeing to pay $13 million to settle the US class-action lawsuit, for his claims of false and misleading advertising.

The settlement includes many millions of people who had purchased at least one Red Bull in their life, over the last 12 years. Red Bull has offered class members the option of either a $10 reimbursement, or $15 worth of Red Bull products, which probably won't give you wings. This means that if you've purchased one if their energy drinks between January 1, 2002 and October 3, 2014, you can claim either of the two options from Red Bull, without proof of purchase required.

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30FPS lock on The Evil Within for PC? Unlocked with debug commands

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 8, 2014 11:31 PM CDT

Earlier on today we reported about The Evil Within on PC being locked to 30FPS for the reason of it "Makes more sense for a survival horror game" but now Bethesda has come out and discussed the upcoming horror game on PC, and much more detail.

Bethesda has now addressed the 30FPS lock on the PC version, saying that the developers have locked the frame rate at such a low point because the game was built around that, as the quote above says, but it can be unlocked through debug commands. A FAQ on the game reads: "Shinji Mikami and the team at Tango designed The Evil Within to be played at 30fps and to utilize an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for all platforms. The team has worked the last four years perfecting the game experience with these settings in mind. For PC players, we'll provide debug commands on how you can alter the framerate and aspect ratio, but these commands and changes are not recommended or supported and we suggest everyone play the game as it was designed and intended for the best experience".

The developer has aimed for 1080p as its resolution, but 4K is supported. PC gamers have the option of turning off the cinema-like letterboxing in order to render it at full screen, but this option is not fully supported. PC gamers do get a few additional graphical options to play with, which include fullscreen or window support, AA settings (FXAA, MLAA and SMAA), Shadow Quality (High, Medium, Low), Motion Blur, SSAO, and Reflections.

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Alien: Isolation works with Oculus Rift after couple of simple tweaks

Oculus VR did demo its Oculus Rift headset using 'Alien: Isolation' during E3 2014. It looked very promising and gave a taste of the good things to come. But nobody knew if Creative Assembly's latest sci-fi survival horror game was just few keystrokes away from making the game work with Oculus Rift. Although this counts as 'unofficial' Oculus Rift support, the company behind the game did say that the game won't be supporting VR at the time of launch.

That didn't stop a group of Reddit users to com together and see if they can make the game support VR. As it turns out, they didn't really have to make a lot of efforts since the coding was already present. There are few issues, but as an end result VR works nicely for a game which doesn't have official VR support. The game also has positional tracking as seen during the demos of Oculus Rift's Development Kit 2.

Neither SEGA nor Creative Assembly said anything about the latest finding by the Reddit users, but the unofficial support is far from perfect, as expected. According to latest updates by the Reddit user, the game crashes due to a CPU problem from their end.

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Last-gen version of Call of Duty includes next-gen upgrade for free

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Oct 8, 2014 10:25 PM CDT

Microsoft, Sony and Activision want to see the forthcoming Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare become to best-selling Call of Duty yet, with Activision announcing a cross-buy deal.

This cross-buy deal sees the digital versions of the Xbox 360 and PS3 including a Xbox One or PS4 version, for free. Better yet, this includes all of the purchased DLC and season passes, and all of the stats you will tally up on the previous-gen hardware. Once you've secured yourself a copy of the looks-like-Titanfall-meets-COD first-person shoote,r you just need to enter in a code that you'll receive with your copy.

This deal expires at the end of March 2015, so you'll have plenty of time to get your free current-gen copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. This is how the companies should be dealing with all games, as it encourages people to buy a new console without having to fork out the money for it right now. Better yet, I don't see why you couldn't buy this on the Xbox 360 or PS3 for yourself (or a friend) and then use the code for a Xbox One or PS4 version. I guess we'll find out more details on this deal closer to the release of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

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Indian govt to investigate Flipkart over 'Big Billion Day' complaints

The Government of India's Commerce and Industry minister said that the government will investigate Flipkart over numerous complaints made during and after the e-commerce site's 'Big Billion Day' sale on October 6th. These complaints are accompanied by several hashtags like fraudkart, Big Scam Day and Big Billion. The company co-founders did issue a statement of apology via its company blog, but it didn't have any affect on most consumers.

Numerous consumers and potential buyers complained that Flipkart was luring in consumers. Throughout the day of the sale, many said via Twitter that Flipkart already increased the prices of products before the sale. It was followed with complaints for lack of stock for several items that was listed as available in search results and website outage complaints.

Besides the consumers, retailers and traders have also serious concerns over Flipkart's 'predatory discount'. They've claimed that the e-commerce is damaging many small and larger retail businesses that find it impossible to compete with Flipkart's unrealistic discount offers. The Confederation of All-India Traders also pressured the Commerce and Industry Ministry to intervene in this matter, and implement procedures to monitor and control such predatory pricing and allegedly unrealistic sales. The Enforcement Directorate will also be investigating Flipkart after an order from the Reserve Bank of India.

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Warner Bros will let you check out the Batcave through the Oculus Rift

Warner Bros and DC Entertainment are making the virtual reality version of the Batcave so that you can check out Batman's underground crib in VR, with the help of the Oculus Rift.

The Dark Knight's VR Batcave is based on classic '90s cartoon series called 'Batman: the Animated Series'. The VR interaction will also be made compatible with other VR devices along with Oculus Rift. The company that will be responsible for this project is Otoy, but the series' original producer Bruce Timm is also involved in the project.

Warner Bros' Sam Register said "We are continuously exploring new and exciting ways to tell stories and share experiences with audiences around the globe, and we're excited to be working with Otoy on this cutting-edge adaptation from Batman: The Animated Series". He continued, "More to the point: It's super-cool, eye-popping stuff, and fans are going to love it. We can't wait for them to have the chance to see the Batcave from the show again - for the very first time."

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