Monthly Archives: March 2015

GIGABYTE Releases Its First ARM Based Server Solutions

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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GIGABYTE released their first server products based on the ARM architectures on the opening day of WHD.global last week in Germany. The new solutions are developed in partnership with AppliedMicro and Annapurna Labs, two innovative members of the booming ARM for server ecosystem, and offer excellent performance-per-watt capabilities.

The new motherboard and servers are built around the AppliedMicro X-Gene’s ARMv8-A architecture and have the capabilities for up 128GB memory with the 8 DIMM slots. The network connectivity has plenty of coverage for even the most demanding operations with two 10Gbit SFP+ LAN ports and two normal RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet ports. There are four SATA3 ports, one USB 2.0 header, and an Aspeed AST2400 remote management controller.

Fully compliant with ARM Server Base System Architecture (SBSA) and Server Base Root Requirements (SBBR) standards, the new MP30-AR0 server board represents an optimized application solution for cloud and scale-out computing, supported by a robust network of over 1,000 open source software developers. AppliedMicro’s X-Gene processor, which became commercially available in 2014, is the industry’s first enterprise-hardened, ARM 64-bit Server on a Chip solution. Designed for cloud, enterprise server, and HPC applications, X-Gene’s distinguishing features include multiple high-performance processors running at up to 2.4GHz along with robust, high-speed memory and I/O.

Gigabyte also released the R120-P30 single socket 1U rackmount server with the above-mentioned motherboard. It’s built with 4 hot-swap bays to fit the onboard connectors and comes with a 350W 80 Plus Bronze certified PSU.

Now you might think that a server like that needs way more storage at its disposal, and so did GIGABYTE. The D120-S3G system is designed as an add-on storage expansion of existing server infrastructures and can support up to 100TB of raw capacity within a single 1U rackmount enclosure. It connects to the network over a dual 10GbE SFP+ interface and facilitates SATA3 ports for sufficient bandwidth and transfer rates.

It is powered by an Annapurna Labs Alpine AL5140 1.7GHz Quad-Core processor, based on the ARMv7 architecture and the Cortex-A15 core, and has an impressive low 10W power consumption. It is equipped with hardware RAID and Erasure Code engine supporting RAID 5 and 6 levels protection. It comes with a 400W 80 Plus Gold certified PSU, one ECC DIMM slot, and 16 HDD slots.

Thanks to GIGABYTE for providing us with this information

MotoGP 15 Trailer and Details Announced

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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MotoGP 15, the latest instalment based around the premier class of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, has been announced, with developer Milestone releasing a trailer, details of the game, and teasing a Spring release.

The game’s highlights, as revealed by Milestone, include:

  • Bike: choose from more than 20 bike models across 3 classes, MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3, choose from 40 different liveries with official colour schemes, and consider offers from the main sponsors to accept their sponsorship during races.
  • Rider: change the colour scheme of your leathers to match your bike, buy boots and gloves, choose your rider’s face and customise the helmet with the dedicated Helmet Editor.
  • Motorhome: transform your game experience with 3 different motorhomes (Basic, Mid-Range and Top-Range), so your avatar can live in a manner befitting to their level of stardom.

Other noteworthy features include an enhanced career mode, which now has the customisation options fully integrated. After character creation, the player enters the first race as a wild card, climbing the rankings in order to negotiate team affiliations and sponsorship deals, or even race for your own private team.

Other features include a new time trial mode called Beat the Time, the inclusion of two-stroke bikes, and every team and rider from the official MotoGP, with gameplay including real events from the 2014 season.

MotoGP 15 is set for release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in the coming months.

Source: Dark Side of Gaming

Google Lets You Manage Its Cloud Platform from Your Smartphone

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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Google appears to be testing a beta console version for Android smartphones and tablets that helps its customers monitor services in the cloud while commuting between places. The company states that a Cloud Console for Apple’s iOS will be expected to be released later this year as well.

The app is said to let users set up alerts, manage Google cloud platform resources and access health graphs to gain insights into the performance and availability of their cloud-powered applications on Google’s Cloud Monitoring feature. The console is also said to integrate with Cloud Monitoring to enable automated incident tracking when system metrics deviate.

One example of how the app works is generating alerts about Google Compute Engine instances when the expected load exceeds 50% CPU for one hour, should the users set an alert with the latter condition.

“When investigating an issue, you often need to check the health and properties of your resources, such as running state, zone or IP,” Michael Thomsen, product manager at Google, stated.

Users are said to be able to also do a number of core operations such as changing the App Engine version or starting or stopping a Compute Engine instance, having the App Engine be Google’s platform-as-a-service for running applications. For those interested in the application, it is currently available on the Google Store and accessible from here.

Thank you PCWorld for providing us with this information

Gigabyte GA-X99M-Gaming 5 (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

Posted on by Rikki Wright
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Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Intel’s current flagship consumer chipset, X99 has been around since August 2014. The X99 chipset was the first motherboard range to fully utilise DDR4 memory modules and put the much higher speeds to use. Previously the X## chipset was only available in ATX and upwards size, then vendors slowly made the transition to m-ATX. This smaller form factor is sure to entice a wider range of users to upgrade to X99 if they previously didn’t have a case that could accommodate E-ATX or ATX motherboards.

Today we have the Gigabyte G1 Gaming Ga-X99M-Gaming 5 Motherboard; the world’s first X99 based m-ATX motherboard available to consumers. Gigabyte is famous for producing some very high-quality motherboards with some amazing features, some being the best that we’ve ever tested here at eTeknix. The G1 Gaming series of motherboards are aimed at the higher end enthusiast market, bundling all of the quality and aftercare that Gigabyte are renowned for with amazing performance and overclocking capabilities. With the recent move into the m-ATX X99 market, let’s see if Gigabyte have managed to cram in all the goodness of what made the G1 Gaming X99 series so good into a smaller form factor board.

Key Features

Manufacturers nowadays need to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd, Gigabyte is no different and has brought a huge array of features to this motherboard.

  • App Center
    • @BIOS
    • Ambient LED
    • EasyTune
    • EZ Setup
    • Fast Boot
    • Game Controller
    • Cloud Station
    • On/Off Charge
    • Smart TimeLock
    • Smart Recovery 2
    • System Information Viewer
    • USB Blocker
    • V-Tuner
  • Q-Flash
  • Smart Switch
  • Xpress Install

For more information on these functions, please visit the Gigabyte GA-X99m-Gaming 5 product page.

Packaging and Accessories

Keeping in style with the rest of the Gaming series from Gigabyte. Very nice feeling box, with a few goodies inside. Matching I/O plate, 4x SATA 6 cables, SLi bridge, stickers and the general ‘light reading material’.

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Play Pacman on the Virtual Streets of Google Maps

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Google starts out with April’s fools jokes early, well at least for us here in the Europe area. But it’s already the 1st in some places and Google started out with a cryptic tweet. Dots and fruits, this can only be Pacman.

And yes it is, and yes you can play Pacman in Google Maps for the time being. All you have to do is visit Maps on the web and click on the little Pacman icon at the bottom-left of the screen. Not all areas are suitable for the gaming environment and Maps will let you select a new area or chose one by random with the “I’m feeling lucky” algorithm. Then it will use the road grid to draw the level to play on.

You control your yellow hero with the keyboard, so off you go, go chase those ghosts around your local streets.

Thanks to TheNextWeb for providing us with this information

Team Group Announces its M.2 SSD Lineup

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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Team Group has just launched its next generation form factor high-speed TM4PS4/TM8PS4 M.2 SSDs, which are said to provide a great solution for mobile computing due to their data saving performance, ultra compact size and lightweight.

The TM4PS4/TM8PS4 SSDs come with the next generation SATA III R3.0 6Gb/s transmission interface, which is also backward compatible with the R2.0 interface. The SSDs also come in two sizes, 22 x 42 mm and 22 x 80 mm, being suitable for most compact portable devices.

In terms of performance, the TM4PS4 SSD is said to have a read speed of up to 550 MB/s (ATTO), 520 MB/s (Crystal Disk Mark) and write speed of up to 150 MB/s (both), while also coming with 70K IOPS for the 128GB SDD and 40K IOPS for the 256GB SSD. In contrast, the TM8PS4 SSD comes with up to 560 MB/s (ATTO), 530 MB/s (Crystal Disk Mark) read speeds and up to 300 MB/s (both) write speeds, having a 73K IOPS for the 128GB version and 70K IOPS for the 256GB version.

Both the TM4PS4 and TM8PS4 have a 0.3W power consumption in idle, while providing an almost identical 1.1W and 1.2W respectively consumption while reading operations. Due to the double amount of write speed, the power consumed by the TM8PS4 jumps to 2.9 W, while the TM4PS4 stays at a 1.9 W mark.

Team Group has fitted both the M.2 SSDs with advanced garbage collection technology, wear levelling TRIM command and DevSleep mode. With a MTBF of 1.5 million hours and a 3-year limited warranty, the TM4PS4/TM8PS4 M.2 SSDs prove to be a good storage solution for any PC or laptop device.

Thank you Guru3D for providing us with this information

ASUSTOR Announces the Launch of ADM 2.4

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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After almost 2 months in beta state, ASUSTOR officially released the new ADM 2.4 update. After updating their NAS with the new operating system, users will be able to enjoy improved performance on encrypted shares as well as a proper release of storage space previously occupied by already deleted files. The use of SSDs has also been optimized with full TRIM support to keep up the transfer speeds of the drives. The SNMP network management protocol was added and the Network Defender got enhanced with more flexibility. With the use of VLC, the NAS devices now also support multimedia browsing for the File Explorer with generated thumbnails of your videos.

The new update that also includes bugfixes is available for all ASUSTOR’s devices now, all you need to do is update your NAS. If you aren’t sure if you want to upgrade your system, you can take a test drive of the new system with the Live Demo on the ADM site.

New functions featured in ADM 2.4 include:

  • All new shared folder encryption mechanism: The new encryption mechanism, effectively increases data encryption speeds, and properly releases storage space previously occupied by already deleted files. With regards to encrypted folders that were created using the previous encryption method, a conversion function is provided on the settings page for easy converting without any complicated steps.
  • Newly added support for the SSD Trim command: This function allows the SSDs installed on the NAS to maintain stable read/write performance while simultaneously controlling the frequency of overwriting to specific blocks, extending the life of SSDs.
  • Newly added SNMP Network Management Protocol: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) provides a set of standards that allows managers on a single network management system (NMS) to collect information from all network equipment for convenient monitoring and maintenance. ADM 2.4.0 supports SNMP v1, v2c, v3 and also provides a trap setting that can actively notify the NMS of significant events.
  • Enhanced Network Defender: Users can now create a trusted list and also define black and white lists using the IP country of origin or area via the Geo IP expansion module, providing added configuration flexibility.
  • Optimized File Explorer: Users can now intuitively right-click and select the preview function to play videos, music and images when browsing through multimedia files with ADM File Explorer.

Thanks to ASUSTOR for providing us with this information

New Feature Length Batman Movie Announced and Adam West Is Starring

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Fans of ABC’s iconic Batman TV series can jump with joy as Adam West and Burt Ward will return for at least one new animated feature film to commemorate the originals show’s 50th anniversary due next year. The two actors announced the news great at the Mad Monster Con this weekend, where they revealed that they will lend their voices to the new films.

Very little is known about the new films yet, but as one that grew up watching the original show, I’m hoping that it will carry the same and less serious tone of the original show and not that of the newer movies. It would be a nice change.

Thanks to MoviePilot for providing us with this information.

Anonymous Threatens Israel with Electronic Holocaust

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Anonymous has been fighting Israel for a couple of years now, and while their attacks have gotten more sophisticated over time, the damage they’re causing is said to be decreasing. Now the group threatens Israel with what they call the electronic holocaust where they vowed to erase it from cyberspace on April 7 for crimes committed in Palestine.

https://youtu.be/5wxzJsBmdd8

The video features an electronic voice as we know from previous Anonymous videos while the background shows images from Israels attacks. The video is in English, but has Arabic subtitles. “We are coming to punish you again. As we did many times, we’ll take down your servers, government websites, Israeli military websites, banks, and public institutions. We’ll erase you from cyber-space as we have every year, 7 April 2015, will be an electronic holocaust,” the video says.

Anonymous will start this year’s attack just a little over a week before the Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Israel as Yom HaShoah, on April 16. But experts question how much is achieved by these attacks as Israel is pretty much leading in electronic warfare, both offensive and defensive, and Anonymous operates mainly with DDoS attacks.

Thanks to RT for providing us with this information

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Comes with Over 200 Hours of Gameplay

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is already known as a massive and ambitious project, having the same characteristics lead to it being delayed several times now. But how can we imagine the immensity of the game world in real-world time? Well, the answer seems to come from the title’s developers, having them state that its size can be measured in well over 200 hours of gameplay.

“Hard to say,” said developer Damien Monnier on Twitter in response to a fan’s question about just how long the game might last. “If you do everything, I’d say 200+ hours.”

The title is undoubtedly coming with a lot of content, but as with any other title that is yet to be released, the numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt. A lot of developers made claim of their title’s world size in recent years, but some of them really didn’t turn out as described.

A good example of a massive game world that eventually amounts to nothing more than simple, boring side-quests and endless hours of roaming around is Dragon Age: Inquisition. Whether The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will have a more Skyrim approach, we just have to wait and see.

Thank you Gamingbolt for providing us with this information

Hyperkin Concept Turns Your Smartphone into a Gameboy

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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A Reddit user has shared some concept art of one of the projects he’s working on for Hyperkin, and we like what we see. The idea, turn your smartphone into a nostalgic looking Gameboy. But it doesn’t just look like one, it also appears to be working as one.

The base unit looks to have the same size specifications as the original Gameboy and the buttons are located where you know to find them. On the rear it looks like it will support the real deal, Gameboy cartridges. As this was posted as concept art, it’s to be seen if it ever gets released. On the other hand, it’s also categorized as a ‘new project’.

Some might argue that they’d run into copyright issues and that lawsuits will be incoming from Nintendo’s side, but Hyperkin has a reputation of not caring too much about that as it was seen in the Retron 5 case.

Star Citizen Hits the $77 Million Mark in Crowdfunding

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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It seems that Star Citizen’s success will never stop, and the same can be said for its crowdfunding campaign. It looks like the campaign does not slow down with time, instead it seems to be speeding up.

The title looks to have hit the $77 million mark in crowdfunding, a staggering amount of money compared with other AAA title budgets, even the most expensive ones. One interesting aspect about the latter is that the last $1 million was made in just 5 days, indicating that the crowdfunding campaign might be speeding up.

Adding up the maths, it looks like the title might even hit $100 million soon, but even if it doesn’t hit that mark (by some miracle), it will still remain the most successful crowdfunded thing in history. How about that?

Star Citizen is said to be available for PC players very soon, but with the latter mentioned budget, it could be even sooner than expected.

Thank you Gamingbolt for providing us with this information

Get Your Old Rig Gaming Ready on a Tight Budget

Posted on by Peter Donnell
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Introduction

Have you been looking at the latest graphics cards, then looking at your own PC and thinking you’ve got a gutless gaming rig? I know the feeling, the new cards can be very tempting, at least until you check your bank balance and remember you’re not rich. High-end hardware is great, but do you really need a $1000 Titan X to enjoy your favourite games? Nope. If you’re thinking that your current system is a little outdated, that you need to upgrade the whole thing to be able to enjoy the latest games, you’re wrong and I’m going to prove it.

Now I will admit, if you have a good bit of money saved up to replace your entire rig, go for it, it’ll be awesome. However, if your budget is limited and your system needs a new lease of life, we’re going to see how much improvement you can get for a modest investment of just £300 (approx $440 US)!

I’ll be starting out with a rather humble system, which features the hardware listed below, which I think you’ll agree is pretty unremarkable by today’s standards. The motherboard is an overclocking board, but we’ll be running at stock clocks to help better simulate an under powered system, it just happens to be the most suitable board I had at the time.

  • Dual-core i3 4330 3.5GHz
  • MSI GTX 560 Ti 1GB graphics card
  • ADATA 8GB 1600Mhz Memory 11-11-11-28
  • Gigabyte GA-Z97N Motherboard
  • Western Digital 500GB Hard Drive 7200RPM
  • Silverstone Kublai KL06 Chassis
  • Seasonic 600W 80+ Bronze PSU
  • CoolerMaster Gemini Low-Profile CPU cooler

I’ll be upgrading the system with the following components, then benchmarking it in some popular applications to compare how much the performance improves.

All prices correct at the time of writing.

As you can see, there’s nothing exciting about this system. Perhaps a couple of years ago, a system of this specification may have raised an eyebrow a little, but perhaps not so much today.

No SSD here, just a standard and rather well aged mechanical hard drive, so expect boot times to be enough to go and make a coffee.

The GPU has had a hard life, it’s actually the one we used to use for chassis reviews, so there’s are a few bumps and scrapes, but it’s still in perfect working order.

I’ve already benchmarked the system with this setup and we’ll get to the scores for that very soon, so let’s install our new Ballistix Sport memory, which has tighter timings than the old kit, it won’t be much, but it should give us that extra edge for very little investment.

The Crucial BX100, an absolutely incredible bargain at under £60 ($88 US); this will no doubt have a huge impact on the systems performance.

I’ll be using the new ASUS GTX 960 STRIX 2GB card for my upgrade.

It’s certainly one of the nicest GTX 960’s on the market right now and while I’m expecting great performance gains, it’s also aesthetically pleasing, so should provide a nice visual upgrade too!

The card also features more video outputs than the 560 Ti, giving you greater connectivity options.

It also features a nice back plate and only required a single 6-pin power connector vs the dual 6-in required by the GTX 560 Ti.

 

New components all installed, which only took about ten minutes to get them out of their respective boxes and plugged in.

The GTX 960 looking great!

Our new BX100 SSD.

Finally, the new Ballistix Sport memory.

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Tanner Productions Remakes Top Gear in Just Cause 2!

Posted on by Gabriel Roşu
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While Jeremy Clarkson may be gone form BBC, his voice recording can now be seen in Just Cause 2 machinima. It looks like Tanner Productions have taken the audio clips from one of Top Gear’s challenge segments and put it in a footage of Just Cause 2.

The sound clips come from the original Top Gear show, where the presenters are spit into two teams, each racing to get from their shared starting point to a hotel a few hundred miles away. Richard Hammond and James May are said to have travelled by plane, while Jeremy Clarkson went by car.

In the video below, it looks like Tanner Productions adapted the sequence to the tropical island of Panau, having a perfect outcome to the whole thing.

The video comes to a turning point where they start creating new scenes around the audio clip, having Hammond and May shot down by a missile or Clarkson attacked by a gang of machine-gun wielding paramilitary.

The video is extremely amusing to watch and maybe we can see the entire back catalogue from Top Gear recreated in a Just Cause 2 sequel. What do you guys think?

Thank you PCGamesN for providing us with this information

Amazon’s New Prime Credit Card Offers 5% Cash Back

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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Amazon is rolling out a brand new store card that gives holders that are Prime members 5% cash back on eligible Amazon.com purchases. The card is different than the current popular Amazon Rewards Visa from Chase, which does not offer the 5% cash back.

The new Amazon.com store card also gives holders the options of 5% cash back in the form of statement credit or 0% financing on purchases more than $149. The store card does not have an annual fee, is backed by Synchrony Bank and comes with fraud protection for piece of mind.  The holder must have their own Prime membership to be eligible for the cash back, as being an invited guest on a Prime account will not count. This card will be a good choice for those users who use Amazon Prime frequently and pay off cards every month, as it does carry a 25.99% APR.  Signing up for the card and being approved will get you a free $40 gift card to make the deal even better.

The only items that are not eligible are “Amazon Prime memberships, digital newspaper and magazine subscriptions, games and software downloads“, as stated by Amazon.

Source: LifeHacker

Microsoft’s Spartan Browser Included in Latest Windows 10 Preview Build

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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The latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview has given us the first glimpse of Microsoft’s new browser, codenamed Project Spartan. Initially thought to be a direct replacement for the much-maligned Internet Explorer, it has since emerged that Microsoft is to phase out the old browser gradually, with Spartan taking over in stages.

Users on the “fast ring” of the Windows Insider program have access to the Spartan preview, on Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10047, immediately. Those on the standard build cycle will have to wait a few weeks, at least, until they get their hands on the new browser.

This first public release of Project Spartan shows off some of its fledgling capabilities, such as support for Cortana (the company’s digital assistant, intended to feature on all future Microsoft platforms), pen integration, and its new rendering engine. Microsoft stresses, though, that the browser is still in its infancy and as such should not be considered complete.

Next month sees Microsoft’s developer conference, at which it is expected that the company will reveal more about both Windows 10 and Project Spartan as we creep towards a projected Summer release.

Source: TechCrunch

ASUS Republic of Gamers Announces Dream Gaming Machine Global Online Campaign

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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ASUS Republic of Gamers division recently invited a dozen world-class modders to build twelve dream gaming machines with very few conditions. The system should be based on either G20 and GR8 gaming desktops or the G57 gaming laptop and the modding should be completed in just 30 hours. The outcome and modded systems look amazing.

You can even vote on your favourite build out of the twelve and the best part of all, you can win a gaming system yourself by doing so. ROG are asking their fans to vote for their favorite Dream Gaming Machine in a global online poll, between 30th March to 27th April 2015, with voters able to win ROG G20 and GR8 gaming desktops with VG248QE and VG278HE ultra-fast 144Hz gaming monitors, and G751 gaming laptops.

 

You can vote once a day to increase your odds and bonus giveaways are triggered with each 10.000 global votes. The bonus prizes include the ROG Gladius mouse and Whetstone mouse pad.

The winners are picked randomly and announced on the global Facebook page. Sounds good to me, I’ll go vote for my favourite right now. You can watch build videos that include interviews as well as more photos on the same page, worth a checkout.



Square Enix Redesigns Star Wars

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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First Batman, then Iron Man; now Star Wars is the latest iconic property to be given the Square Enix makeover, and it is some of the video game developer/toy designers most impressive work yet. The figurines – which include Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and a Stormtrooper – are part of Square Enix’s Variant Play Arts series, which has included a host of DC Comics characters.

The Stormtrooper and Boba Fett figures are due out in July, while Darth Vader will be available from May. Each figure is priced at $109.

Source: Kotaku

Spotify-Powered PlayStation Music Launches Today in 41 Countries

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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The Spotify-powered music service PlayStation Music is replacing Sony’s outgoing Music Unlimited today. The service will be available on both PlayStation 3 and 4 in 41 countries, as opposed to the old service that only had 19 countries.

The new Spotify powered service means that players will have access to their Spotify music and playlists via the console and in games. The service has a free tier which should mean that anyone can sign up and have this on their consoles to listen to what they want when they want. The free tier is ad supported so if users will want interruption-free music they will have the option to step up to a $10 a month plan, and that should also have higher bitrate music as well. There will be a 30-day free trial for new users, and if you were formerly a Music Unlimited customer that is extended to a 60-day free trial.

Source: Engadget

Amazon Home Services Now Available in Major US Cities

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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Amazon’s new Home Services options are now available in the US to “major” cities in 41 states. The service lets customers shop for professional services locally from Amazon in categories from tech support to home maintenance.

Amazon rolled out the brand new Home Services, where customers can purchase anything from appliance repair to goats to graze a field. The services are hand-picked professionals by Amazon and offer up front pricing. The job is only paid for when it is done so customer satisfaction should be high and the likelihood of contractors cutting corners will be low. The amount of services offered will vary greatly from city to city, with the largest cities likely having a lot more options than smaller ones.

Source: Engadget

Redesigned Xbox One Might be Coming Sooner Than Imagined

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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The poor Xbox One, its bulky body and square edges drawing unfavourable comparisons to a VCR, could be set for a slim, sleek facelift, and soon.

Though the current design of Microsoft’s console was absolutely practical – it allows greater airflow to prevent overheating and the larger internal components reduce risk of system failure, like the farcical ‘red ring of death’ that toppled many early Xbox 360 models – it takes up a lot of space, and isn’t the most attractive console on the market.

Microsoft seems to be taking these criticisms on board, but is likely to be influenced by more technological factors, including 4K video support – Netflix’s Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt revealed at CES 2015 that both Microsoft and Sony would be releasing new iterations of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to support ultra HD content – and Microsoft’s AR headset, the HoloLens.

Slim console iterations usually follow around five years after its progenitor’s release, but reports suggest that the new Xbox One could arrive this year, only two years after its launch.

Source: Bidness Etc

DARPA Developing Superior GPS Replacement

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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Anyone who’s tried to negotiate their way cross-country with only a satnav for guidance knows that GPS signal can be temperamental. It seems that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) must have also struggled with a ten-hour road trip from Bournemouth to Loch Lomond, as it is developing a “radical” new technology to replace global positioning systems.

DARPA has written a new paper on the matter, in which it states its aim to create a system that goes beyond satellite tracking and signal strength. Or, as DARPA puts it, “The need to be able to operate effectively in areas where GPS is inaccessible, unreliable or potentially denied by adversaries, has created a demand for alternative precision timing and navigation capabilities.”

As part of the endeavour, DARPA is also developing self-calibrating gyroscopes, accelerometers, and tracking clocks that don’t depend on wireless signal. The system is projected to be self-contained, housing all the data you need to track your position within the device. In addition, DARPA wants to track local “signals of opportunity”, like television, radio, and even meteorological conditions, such as lightning, to help location tracking.

DARPA is, of course, focusing on military implementation but, as with all good tech, the new location system is sure to bleed through to the consumer market.

Source: Engadget

Federal Agents Charged with Stealing from Silk Road

Posted on by Bohs Hansen
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Two Federal agents are now facing charges themselves after the takedown of the Silk Road drug marketplace last year. The two agents, Carl Mark Force and Shaun Bridges, were both involved in the takedown by operating undercover and building up evidence against the Silk Road operators.

According to an affidavit, Force redirected Bitcoins to a personal account during the investigation but failed to report this or turn them over once the investigation was completed. The idea of a couple extra bucks in his pocket could now result in years in prison instead as he faces charges of money laundering, wire fraud and theft of government property. The other agent, Bridges, only faces laundering and fraud charges. Naughty agents.

Thanks to The Verge for providing us with this information

New Mass Effect “Looking Great” on PC, Says BioWare Creative Director

Posted on by Ashley Allen
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BioWare’s Creative Director Mac Walters has confirmed that the next Mass Effect game is set for PC release, and that it is “Looking great!”. Walters, who was lead writer on both Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, responded to a Twitter user asking him to dispel rumours that the new Mass Effect game would not be on PC, which he did:

BioWare has been at great pains to stress that the latest entry in the Mass Effect franchise should not be referred to as “Mass Effect 4”, since the game does not continue the story of Commander Shepard. The developer has also confirmed that, although it will run on the Frostbite engine, the game will not use the same ‘template’ as its fantasy RPG, Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Source: Game Watcher

Musk: New Tesla Product Line to Be Unveiled on April 30th

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla took to Twitter today to say that the car company will be unveiling its new product line. The new product line will not be a car and will unveil the new line at its Hawthorne Design Studio on Thursday April 30th, at 8pm.

That is all that was offered as a teaser, and it has many wondering if this means that it will be showing the new stationary battery pack that is designed to power an entire home. Last month Musk said that Tesla was nearing the launch of that product so this is very likely what it will end up being. Though as The Verge stated “But this is Tesla and Elon Musk we’re talking about, so the chance of a different, unforeseen surprise is always there”, something that is very true.

Source: The Verge

Leaked iPhone 6C Photos Leaked!

Posted on by Ryan Leiserowitz
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The next new iPhone may have just had pictures of it leaked by Future Supplier, that claim to show the rear casing of the rumored iPhone 6C. The authenticity of the photos has not been confirmed as yet, and there are noticeable differences to the back of the device compared to previous models.

The noticeable differences are the cutout for the camera flash, as well as the microphone and speaker holes, which are obviously in a different configuration. Setting this “6C” back from the current 6 models is the lack of a camera bump. As these are leaked photos that can’t be verified as of yet it is best to take them with a grain or two of salt, though many Apple leaks have turned out to be true in the past.

Source: 9to5 Mac