Miss a car payment? Technology prevents drivers from moving vehicles
Much of the attention related to car technology is focused on in-car features to woo potential buyers - but not the technology that could prevent a vehicle from starting. A harsh lesson for those people late on car payments, as lenders are using technology to prevent vehicles from moving until payments are made.
Subprime auto loans have increased over the past five years - 25 percent of car loans in 2013 were made to people with credit scores at or below 640 - so vehicle lease holders want to try to protect themselves if payments aren't made. The starter interrupt device provides lenders the ability to remotely disable locks, along with track vehicles via GPS.
However, customers have complained that their vehicles have been shut down for payments just a few days late - or randomly shut down while waiting in traffic - further igniting a car technology debate.
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Polaroid going after GoPro with its $99 Cube HD-action video camera
Old-school camera company Polaroid has fought for relevance over the years, and has invested in research and development of modern technologies. The company hopes its Cube, a 1080p action sports video recording device with a $99 price tag available next month, will help spur interest in its porftfolio.
"GoPro has done an incredible job building a new category in the digital imaging space," said Scott Hardy, Polaroid CEO, in a statement. "But when we look at that market, we think it can be much bigger by not just targeting the professional and amateur and aspirational thrill-seekers but going after more of the lifestyle."
For action sports participants, having something like a Polaroid Cube instead of a GoPro might not be the worst idea - and could help force GoPro to continue to innovate. The low price, half the price of the entry-level Hero3 device currently priced at $199.99 MSRP, should prove to be helpful.
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NVIDIA announces its beautiful new SLI LED bridges
If you're rocking an NVIDIA GeForce GTX SLI setup, what better way to make it stand out from the crowd than with the new SLI LED bridges that the company unveiled during its GAME24 event.
The new SLI bridges come in three flavors: 2-way SLI, 2-way spaced SLI, and 3-way SLI. The 2-way SLI LED bridges are priced at $29.99, while the 3-way SLI bridge will set you back $39.99. The SLI bridges are designed to work with all modern GeForce GTX cards that support SLI. NVIDIA specifically mentions the following cards: GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, GTX TITAN Black, GTX 970 and GTX 980.
There's one big caveat though, NVIDIA has built these beautiful SLI bridges for reference GPUs, so they might not work on the crazy third-party cards. You'll need to make sure that your custom-cooled GeForce GTX card will work with these new bridges before jumping on-board.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, or GTX Titan X 'GM200' teased
NVIDIA has impressed the world with the launch of its second generation Maxwell-based GPUs, the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980. The cards sip power compared to their already power conservative predecessors, but introduce a slew of new technologies, features and best of all: a great price point. Where to from here? GM200, that's where.
GM200 is now being teased, which is going to be the big new GPU from NVIDIA. NVIDIA's GM200 will feature a die size of 551mm^2, 20-22 SMMs, 2560-2816 CUDA cores, a 384-bit memory bus, a performance boost of around 50% over the GTX Titan Black Edition, with it launching sometime before the end of the year. What it'll arrive as, in terms of naming, is a mystery. With the power efficiency of the GM204 core, which powers the GTX 970 and GTX 980, we should expect a dual-GPU card offered as the GeForce GTX 990, so that's one name it won't use.
Moving on, we could expect it to be the GTX 980 Ti, but if it's offering a huge performance increase over the GTX Titan Black Edition, we might see something like the GTX 985 Ti, or GTX Titan X, something I like the sound of better. Then we have the shift to 20nm, which is expected next year, so if the new GM200 is built on the current 28nm node, the shift to 20nm is going to be an entire new world for NVIDIA. The company has positioned themselves incredibly well after the mess that was Fermi, so much so, that AMD really has no firepower right now - so it'll be interesting to see if NVIDIA holds back, waiting for AMD to release something, to quickly smack it down to reality with its new GM200-based card.
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Apple apologizes for messing up iOS 8.0.1 update, promises fix soon
Apple publicly apologized to its customers for releasing and quickly pulling the iOS 8.0.1 update on Wednesday, and promised a new download "in the next few days."
"We apologize for the great inconvenience experienced by users, and are working around the clock to prepare iOS 8.0.2 with a fix for the issue," Apple said in a statement.
Despite software problems - and a bendy phone - the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models have sold well. More than 10 million units were sold in the first weekend of its release, while Apple enthusiasts seemed eager to pick up one of the two models. Overall, financial analysts believe the company will persevere, but need to further efforts to innovate.
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Google to unveil new Nexus smartphone next month with Android L
I'm sure you've heard by now that Apple's new iPhone 6 Plus is bending in some pockets, so what better time to tease the world of the upcoming next generation Nexus handset? Gogole is preparing to launch the new Nexus mid next month, alongside the launch of its 9-inch, NVIDIA Tegra K1-powered Nexus 9 tablet made by HTC.
According to sources of Android Authority, Google is planning to launch 'new phone hardware' and an unveiling of 'a new software initiative'. The first, should be the new Nexus, possibly named Nexus 6, while the software initiative is most likely Android L, or Android 5.0. The final version of Android L won't be official until November 1 according to these same sources. We should hear more about both the new smartphone and mobile OS in the coming weeks.
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Don't bother updating to iOS 8.0.1, Apple pulls buggy update
Shortly after releasing the iOS 8.0.1 update, Apple has decided to pull it and users will have to wait for a new update. Some people reported they installed the update and lost the ability to make phone calls, use the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, and other problems related to the update. It only took about an hour before Apple decided to pull 8.0.1 as further improvements are made.
"We are actively investigating these reports and will provide information as quickly as we can," Apple said in a statement. "In the meantime, we have pulled back the iOS 8.0.1 update."
Apple has been frantic to improve faults of iOS, as many iPhone owners were anxiously awaiting the opportunity to upgrade to iOS 8.
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Microsoft will launch the Xbox One in China next week
Over the weekend we reported, as many others did, that Microsoft had delayed the launch of its Xbox One console in China, but the company has just announced that this is wrong. Microsoft has said that it is launching the Xbox One in China on September 29, just six days from now.
General Manager of Xbox China, Enwei Xie, said in an official release: "After receiving government approval for the first wave of games, we will launch with the first 10 games now and continue our work to bring more blockbuster games and a broad offering of entertainment and app experiences to the platform in the weeks and months to come. With extraordinary effort and seamless cooperation across parties, we are incredibly excited to deliver Xbox One to fans in China and we welcome them to the Xbox family".
Which ten games will be on offer for the Chinese launch of the Xbox One? We will see Forza Motorsport 5, Kinect Sports Rivals, Powerstar Golf, Zoo Tycoon, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, Dance Central Spotlight, Neverwinter Online, Rayman Legends Trials Fusion, and Naughty Kitties from Chinese developer Coconut Island released on September 29. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said: "This milestone is significant for both our partnership with China and our global expansion plan. Every new market launch is unique and we're grateful to our fans for their patience and enthusiasm throughout the process".
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FTC shuts down Butterfly Labs, a supposed bitcoin mining company
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shut down Butterfly Labs, a bitcoin-mining company that tricked users into purchasing machines that would produce bitcoins. The supposed "bitcoin-mining" devices cost from $149 to $29,899, along with a cloud-based service that tricked customers into paying for server farm computing time.
"We often see that when a new and little-understood opportunity like bitcoin presents itself, scammers will find ways to capitalize on the public's excitement and interest," said Jessica Rich, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director, in a press statement. "We're pleased the court granted our request to halt this operation, and we look forward to putting the company's ill-gotten gains back in the hands of consumers."
The opportunity to mine, own, and use bitcoins as a digital currency - with no federal or central bank support - has paved the way for cybercriminals to trick and steal from regular users. The current value of bitcoin is slightly under $500 per bitcoin, but peaked at more than $1,000 each last November, and continues to prove to be rather volatile.
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Valve announces it has 100 million accounts, Steam Discovery Update
Steam gamers will enjoy the new Steam Discovery Update that Valve is pushing out right now, which adds "functionality and features designed to optimize the Steam shopping experience as the number of new titles on Steam increases".
Valve has softly announced that there are now over 100 million active Steam accounts, with an additional 1300 new titles being added to Steam in the last nine months alone. Valve, with the Steam Discovery Update, is offering a smarter Home page, which will be "offering recommendations based on past purchases, recent playtime, and recommendations by friends".
Valve has also improved Steam Search, with a new feature called Curators, which allows anyone to become a Curator, recommending games and allowing people to follow them, and their recommendation on titles. Alden Kroll of Valve said: "We have made great efforts to increase the number of titles we can publish on Steam, which means more choices for customers. This update introduces multiple features and functionality to help customers explore Steam's growing catalog and find the games they are most interested in playing".
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