Black Ops 3 has been officially announced by Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI) in a brand new teaser trailer, pointing to a worldwide reveal later this month.

According to the teaser trailer, Activision will hold a global unveiling of Black Ops 3 on April 26, 2015 with the possibility of in-game footage, screenshots, and more details on the game.

.@Treyarch is #BackInBlack https://t.co/oxsNv8idvU

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) April 9, 2015

The existence of Black Ops 3 was first speculated by a Snapchat viral campaign spotted by Black Ops II players, lending credence to a possible continuation in the series.

The community’s intuition proved to be right on the mark, as the next Call of Duty game will indeed be a third Blops, and judging from the mysterious trailer we might see some familiar faces in the new sequel.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 officially confirmed.

— Nadeshot (@OpTic_NaDeSHoT) April 9, 2015

Call of Duty world champion Nadeshot was among many who broke the news to excited Blops fans, many of which have been clamoring for a return to the Black Ops line.

Since the news broke the #BackInBlack hashtag has been trending on Twitter, leading to thousands of posts from excited gamers.

It’ll be interesting to see what Activision and Treyarch have planned for the reveal, but all we know for now is that Black Ops 3 is indeed real, and it’ll be blown apart later this month.

The post Black Ops 3 Confirmed, Set For April 26 Reveal appeared first on VR World.

Warner Bros. has just acquired the rights to create a Five Nights at Freddy‘s movie from game creator Scott Cawthon, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee will produce the feature-length adaptation, along with Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg of KatzSmith Productions. Both producers at KatzSmith Productions are also working on a Beetlejuice sequel.

The producers will work closely along with the game’s developer Scott Cawthon to keep the distinct horror thrills intact, and make sure the movie is an authentic extension of the beloved creepy series.

“We’re looking forward to working with Scott to make an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie,” produce Grahame-Smith shared.

“The story really lends itself to being a movie and it taps into a largely unexplored niche of horror that a lot of people will be able to relate to,” Scott Cawthon, the game’s renown creator, said.

The Five Nights at Freddy’s games have a distinct cult following, and have become some of the most acclaimed indies of all time.

Taking place in a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-type restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, the games tell a truly eerie and chilling tale while utilizing some of the most original horror elements in the industry. There are currently three games in the Five Nights at Freddy‘s series, with a possible fourth chapter in the works.

It’ll be interesting to see how the movie will take shape over the coming months, but since Cawthon is involved, we think that the film will stay true to the mystique that’s enthralled millions of gamers.

No details on a release date have been revealed, and we should expect updates later this year.

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UPDATE 3: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has just been updated with an official listing on Steam, featuring a batch of new screengrabs included below.

UPDATE 2: Square Enix has released a new announcement trailer for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided that’s incredibly explosive, symbolic, and just plain awesome.

The video clocks in at three minutes in length and delivers some of the most impressive visual fidelity I’ve seen all year. Plus we have a new bit of info from the trailer’s description, which can be found below.

“Deus Ex: Mankind Divided directly follows the aftermath of the Aug Incident, a day when mechanically augmented citizens all over the world were stripped of control over their minds and bodies, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocents.

“The year is now 2029, and the golden era of augmentations is over.

“Mechanically augmented humans have been deemed outcasts and segregated from the rest of society. Crime and acts of terror serve as a thin veil to cover up an overarching conspiracy aimed at controlling the future of mankind…

“Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is coming soon on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. #CantKillProgress”

UPDATE: All Games Beta has just spotted a collage of new screenshots for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided which can be found below.

Original story is as follows.

Square Enix’s new Deus Ex game has been unearthed, revealing the return of Adam Jensen in a direct sequel to the cyborg shooter hit Human Revolution.

The new game is called Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and is currently in development for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

It’ll take place in 2029 right after the events of Human Revolution, and according to Game Informer, Eidos-Montreal will keep the game’s distinct level of choice-driven gameplay intact as well as update combat mechanics and boss fights.

The game itself focuses on the new pressures on society brought on by augmentations, causing humanity to splinter off into two groups: humans and “transhumans”, that is people with special biomechanic agumentations that make them extra-powerful.

As a comparison, think of how society hates and fears  mutants in the X-Men comics. People are afraid of the new transhumans because they’re basically superhuman, meaning augmented criminals and terrorists can do far more damage.

This time around Jensen, an augmented human himself, gets hired as a special operative in an Interpol-funded task force that hunts down these dangerous transhuman terrorists.

“Jensen has a new suite of augmentations that allow him to cleverly navigate stealth, combat, and social interactions, but how Jensen chooses to solve every problem is entirely up to you.” –Game Informer

Game Informer has also confirmed that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be their cover issue for May, which promises tons of new info and scoops.

Additionally the new screenshots (see below for a full gallery) show off some features of the game, including what looks to be a live-action upgrade system (above) as well as that sleek high-tech style we know and love.

Mankind Divided was presumably the new game that Square Enix was set to reveal in their 3-day “Cant Stop Progress” ARG stream. The publisher has issued a new Tweet that hints at a full reveal tomorrow.

Come see the future of Deus Ex, tomorrow at 09:00PT/12:00ET/18:00CEST on http://t.co/cyr5xIE3fm. #CantKillProgress pic.twitter.com/bJS5Gf2gUu

— Deus Ex (@DeusEx) April 7, 2015

The post New Deus Ex Game Leaked, Adam Jensen Returns appeared first on VR World.

Just as Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich opens the regular staff meetings before a dramatically reduced IDF2015 Shenzhen conference, it is a good time to review how government and enterprises don’t see eye to eye when it comes to strategic business.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is world’s fastest supercomputer, at 33 PFLOPS demonstrated and 55 PFLOPS theoretical performance.

Remember the Tianhe-2 machine at Guangzhou Supercomputer Center, the current World’s number one according to Top 500 Supercomputer list? Unlike some other China supercomputers – Tianhe-2 is fully Intel based machine,  the world’s largest assembly of Intel Xeon CPUs and Xeon Phi accelerators.

Even after Intel ‘opened the kimono’ and gave a nearly 70%  discount on its processors and accelerators, it has given Intel, and therefore US technology sector a major foothold in China and Asian region as such. Over the course of past two years, we were involved in a lot of discussions with Intel staff who were not privy to see the financial impact of the deal — and even argued our undoubtedly solid information. We’re not here to report how things should be, or are in marketing and investor presentations to its numerous staff, but how things really are.

During 2015, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer was supposed to be doubled in its size, up to 110 PFLOPs peak, again using the very same Intel processors and accelerators. Since now these are mature products with lower real manufacturing cost for Intel, they could finally make some real money.

Well, it was not to be: our tweety bird from the window chirped to us that Uncle Sam has put this supercomputer centre, together with National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the system’s creators, and Tianjin centre, among others, on so a so-called “Denial List”, which prevents any high technology from the USA to be sold to these sites. Our sources used even harsher words.

Knowing that these several sites alone are expected to order some 250+ PFLOPS of compute in the next few years (around 500,000 top-end Broadwell-EP Xeon E5v4 processors, or  approximately $1 billion high margin list price) and they were THE Intel friendly ones, this is quite a loss to Intel, thanks to Uncle Sam.

But, what’s worse strategic loss in time is that, based on this decision as an excuse, indigenous China high end processor architectures can now push the government to gradually remove any dependence on US. This means just one thing: an AMD or Intel x86 processor technology is increasingly becoming errata non grata. Should the Chinese government react in force, it will give the Chinese vendors the blank check support to go all the way a developing their Alpha, POWER and MIPS processors for both the government and the mainstream commercial use.

You may think they are not up to the mark, but remember how fast British ARM architecture became the dominant processing architecture in the world. And this group doesn’t need to worry about the antiquated x86 ISA, worry about satisfying the dumbed down shareholder masses, or overpaying their marketing and sales staff, as well as the fat check, golden parachute-protected CxOs.

They have taken the best that the USA has developed (some of key Alpha, GPGPU and MIPS architects left US over the course of past four years, a lot of them due to non-renewed visas) and discarded due to corporate shenanigans, and the continued developing it much farther than anyone expected both on hardware and software side.

Five years ago, ShenWei showed a CPU that performed faster than the fastest GPUs of the time. Now, fifth generation is approaching, slotting between Tesla and FirePro GPGPUs and next-gen Xeon Phi accelerators. However, this is not an accelerator or a GPGPU – this is a CPU.

So, thanks to Uncle Sam, China might not have a 110 PFLOPS Intel based supercomputer but it definitely will launch a 100 PFLOPS system based on upcoming 64-core, TFLOPS-class ShenWei Alpha, with true blue CPUs possibly faster per socket then even the next generation Xeon Phi or Volta/Pascal-based Teslas.  Next, of course 100 PFLOPS Chinese POWER8 or 9 — (thank you IBM) and then possibly even Loongson MIPS – -it may come back into the high end field with renewed government support because of this Uncle Sam move. All are clean, elegant, scalable high end RISC architectures.

So who are the winners and losers from this?

NUDT and Tianhe may be the losers for now, but only short term. They will simply speed up their HPC ARM plan.

Intel comes out the big loser from this and a lot: who will want to do a phased deployment large x86 machine in China now, and worry about future phases? Then comes Uncle Sam himself: they lost even that little bit of influence on the high end China HPC. How is that for “cutting your nose to spite your face?”.

VR WORLD’s  Analysis: US government moves accelerate the Chinese CPU roadmap while curtailing juiciest sales for Intel and other US vendors.

The post Uncle Sam Shocks Intel With a Ban on Xeon Supercomputers in China appeared first on VR World.

Earlier, an Airbus A320 carrying at least 144 passengers and 6 crew crashed Tuesday in Southern France, fueling a mainstream media frenzied debate over plane safety as well as airline protocols and training procedures. The Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 was on its way from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it unfortunately crashed in the Alpes de Haute-Provence, France, specifically near the town of Méolans-Revel, probably killing all its passengers and crew. Germanwings is a subsidiary of Lufthansa Group, one of the largest airlines in the world. The flight was a routine flight that was taking one of the most popular passenger aircraft in the world, alongside a route that these planes traverse on a daily basis – all without incident.

The state of emergency was declared by Air Traffic Control (ATC) 09:47AM GMT when the plane disappeared from the radar. According to scattered information, it seems that the plane made a rapid descent from 38,000 feet to 6,000 feet in mere 8 minutes. This is an eerie pattern similar to the one witnessed on fatal Air Asia Indonesia 8501 flight, which crashed on December 28, 2014 while en route from Jakarta to Singapore.

A question thus arises: how well are pilots and crew trained for the fly-by-wire systems? The Airbus A320 family consists of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners. The A320 family pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire flight control systems, a rather important advancement in civilian aviation in that time. These jets also use side-stick controls, a first in commercial aircraft as well. For many pilots, utilizing the fly-by-wire technology was a peculiar experience and many struggled with such controls, specially the older, more experienced pilots that didn’t have much experience with new technology and wanted a more hands on approach to controlling the aircraft. However, this also brought many improvements to safety, as more people are flying in the air than ever with fewer accidents than ever.

According to several sources, the behavior of the full flight envelope protection was the source of these issues, making for several specific situations where both the Airbus and Boeing jets didn’t perform as designed.

These include the recent Air Asia Indonesia 8501, China Airlines Flight 006, FedEx Flight 705, American Airlines Flight 587 and the most prominent, the US Airways Flight 1549 where the airplane experienced a dual engine failure after a bird strike and subsequently landed safely in the Hudson River. Thanks to the zeal and experience of the pilot, the catastrophic scenario was averted. The NTSB accident report mentions the effect of flight envelope protection: “The airplane’s airspeed in the last 150 feet of the descent was low enough to activate the alpha-protection mode of the airplane’s fly-by-wire envelope protection features… Because of these features, the airplane could not reach the maximum AOA attainable in pitch normal law for the airplane weight and configuration; however, the airplane did provide maximum performance for the weight and configuration at that time… The flight envelope protections allowed the captain to pull full aft on the sidestick without the risk of stalling the airplane.”

What exactly happened with the Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 is yet unknown. The exact specifics, nature and conditions of the flight have not yet been revealed. The A320-211 was a 24 years old airplane. The jet has made its first flight in 1990, delivered to Lufthansa in 1991 and passed on to Germanwings in 2014. Airbus says there are currently 6,191 A320 aircraft in operation across the world.

On the other hand, Lufthansa has an impeccable maintenance record. Aviation expert Michael Boyd, chairman of The Boyd Group consultancy, told CNBC there were no known issues with Germanwings. “Anything involved with Lufthansa is going to be clean as a whistle as far as maintenance and operations goes,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “There hasn’t been anything untoward with the A320 series. … It’s a very reliable airplane.” We can only hope that this situation gets resolved and our prayers are with the passengers, crew on the plane, but also their families.

Image: Mark Harkin

The post Germanwings Crash: Are Low-Cost Carriers Safe? appeared first on VR World.

HTC (TPE: 2498) Chairwoman Cher Wang replaced Peter Chou as chief executive officer Friday in Taipei after a near half-decade of decline in the face of rising smartphone powers like Xiaomi.

Chou also held the position of president, which he will also be departing.

The company announced the departure Friday afternoon.

Reportedly Chou will not be leaving the company, but will rather be joining the HTC Innovation Lab incubator as its chief officer.

Wang co-founded HTC with Chou in 1997. Prior to founding HTC, Wang founded VIA technologies in 1987. She is the daughter of Formosa Plastics’ founder Wang Yung-ching, who was one of Taiwan’s wealthiest individuals until his death in 2008. The death of Wang’s brother, Wang Yung-tsai, in late November marked a new chapter in Formosa Plastics — a pillar of Taiwan’s economy.

“As an entrepreneur at heart, I am excited to see so many new opportunities, and I am honoured to accept this opportunity to help shape the next stage of HTC’s development,” said Cher Wang in a statement. “In his time as CEO, Peter Chou oversaw the successful transition of HTC from a handheld device manufacture for other brands to a global branded company. In his new executive role as head of the HTC Future Development Lab, Mr Chou will be instrumental in identifying future growth opportunities for the Company.”

HTC’s Innovation Lab has had a low profile so far, however its creations have not. At last month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC proved that it was looking beyond smartphones with the launch of the Vive VR headset and the Re Camera.

In February HTC posted positive revenue growth, a first for the company in quite some time. But while HTC new One M9 smartphone and other innovative products like the Vive VR headset have impressed critics, the company needs to continue solid growth to win back confidence from investors.

“We are seeing rapid changes in the industry, with the smartphone as our personal hub connecting us to a growing world of smart devices,” reads Wang’s statement.

“We pioneered the smartphone industry; now we are applying that thinking to realize the potential of a new generation of connected products and services.”

The post Updated: HTC CEO Peter Chou Steps Down appeared first on VR World.

Earlier today, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)  unveiled Facebook Payments to allow friends to send free friend-to-friend payments over the social network messages. This service can be seen as the direct response by the largest social media network in the world, all to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, unveiled a few months earlier. It also shows how the financial sector is developing rapidly, all without much input from the older well-established companies in the sector recently.

The first time you send or receive money in Messenger, you’ll need to add a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a US bank to your account. Once you add a debit card, you can create a PIN to provide additional security the next time you send money. On iOS devices you can also enable Touch ID. As always, you can add another layer of authentication to your account at any time. The payment system lets you just tap a “$” button to send some of your friends money on iOS, Android, and desktop messenger applications, all with zero fees. Facebook Messenger payments will roll out first in the U.S. over the coming months.

European and Asian users will have to wait for Facebook to roll out the service to them. In accordance to recent developments in the sector, this serves as a reminder how quickly things can revolutionize in certain areas overall. This Facebook payment system will undoubtedly have a great argument for a choice between similar payment systems worldwide.

If Facebook can work out an agreement with European Union law makers, this could very well mean the payment system becomes one of the most popular money transfer systems out there. The zero fee approach is offset by companies paying a certain fee when payments are made with this system. Facebook may have a different approach to this aspect, but we believe this will be what the social network does in the future for this issue. While intended for friends, we can see a great deal of use by possible client to client transfers, but more importantly later we can expect this payment system to roll out for companies too.

The post Facebook Introduces Free Friend-To-Friend Payments appeared first on VR World.

When it comes to marketing proneness, Taiwanese (and other Far Eastern) vendors often were afraid of their own shadow, not to interfere with lucrative OEM deals that western vendors utilized to the full extent: you may build your own stuff, but we contract you to build our stuff and you shall not interfere with that.

For good portion of it, the said mantra is true to this date, with Far Eastern industry giants still afraid to speak out, even though they now do almost everything for Western vendors such as Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) – without Foxconn (TPE: 2354) (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro), Pegatron (TPE: 4938) (iPhone), Asustek’s (TPE: 2357)  China facility, Flextronics (NASDAQ: FLEX) and Quanta (TPE: 2382) (MacBook an MacBook Air) – you would not be able to buy your favorite product from Cupertino (Designed in California, Made in China / Taiwan).

Not anymore – Asustek recently found balls of steel (that corporate move to Singapore seems to have helped) and decided to ditch the fear of the West and go for the jugular.

In two infographics, Asus attacked Apple’s products, pushing its design and manufacturing capabilities.

First ad attacks the MacBook and pitches its Zenbook:

ASUS North America tries to prove ZenBook is a thinner (and better) product than Apple MacBook. And 50% cheaper.

Second picture goes for the Golden jugular, pardon, Apple:

Golden Apple (Watch) is not the solution. We (our ZenWatch) is.

Who knows, perhaps Asian tigers will start challenging its former and current customers on more fields than just the price. After all, the key to selling a product is something that Far East still has trouble understanding – it’s not about the physical product, it’s about the experience.

Still, a ballsy move Asus. Ballsy indeed.

The post Asus’ Balls of Steel vs. Apple’s Golden MacBook and Watch appeared first on VR World.

After nearly a decade, one of the web’s major tech publications is closing its doors.

Gigaom ceased operations Monday evening after the company became insolvent and unable to pay its creditors.

“Gigaom is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders,” said founder Om Malik in a statement. “It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end.”

A statement on Gigaom’s homepage from the publication’s management elaborated further.

“As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral,” the publication’s management posted on its website at 5:57 PDT.  “All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets.”

Gigaom’s founder, Om Malik, left day-to-day operations of the website in February 2014 after raising $8 million in venture capital from VC firm True Ventures. As part of the deal he said he was joining the company’s board.

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments about my work at Gigaom — it is humbling to read, but also very welcome at a time like this

— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) March 10, 2015

Just walked out of Gigaom for the last time. Thank you everyone. I will miss you all for rest of my life! http://t.co/IBOhRuZ4DZ

— Om Malik (@om) March 10, 2015

Malik said then that Gigaom would not serve at the “altar of pageviews” and instead base income on subscription revenues as well as a research division.

It appears that Gigaom’s upcoming event, Structure Data, is in the hands of trustees. Its fate is not clear at this time.

A sad day for the industry

During the past two years there’s been a boom in major funding rounds for online media operations. Vox Media, which publishes the titular Vox and The Verge posted a $46.5-million funding round in December. And that’s not an anomaly: going through the list of major web publications you’ll find investments in the tens of millions. Business Insider raised $30 million last year, Pando Daily brought in $4 million,  Buzzfeed secured nearly $40 million, Upworthy lined up $12 million, and Vice is now worth over $1 billion thanks to investments from old media companies.

But every bubble also brings in a bust. These new media companies have observed the harsh lessons learned by traditional media giants — which are all hemorrhaging cash — and can take steps not to repeat the same mistakes.

However, with big investments come big expectations. It’s a sad day for the media industry as a whole when a respected operation like Gigaom has to shut its doors. Let’s hope that all of these media companies that are sitting on big VC investments can post returns to satisfy creditors, as nobody wants more journalists out of work.

The post Gigaom Shuts Down After Capital Runs Dry appeared first on VR World.

Bethesda Softworks has announced its first-ever E3 Showcase that will be held in Hollywood, California on June 15, 2015. The event will also be live streamed across Bethesda’s official Twitch channel.

Since the announcement, the internet has exploded with speculation that Fallout 4 will be revealed during the big show.

It certainly fits, doesn’t it? What better way to announce one of the most anticipated games of this console generation by renting out an auditorium for a gala affair, celebrating everything Bethesda?

Everyone wants Fallout 4 to become a reality, and Bethsoft has a stake to make a killing with the news of a reveal–just a confirmation would send a huge tidal wave of hype and elation through the entire gaming world.

Bethesda will have our first ever E3 Conference, it'll be live streamed, and you might even get to attend. Deets at http://t.co/ZXH7Zvj2jg

— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) February 10, 2015

Official news on Fallout 4 has been incredibly vague over the last few years, with hints and rumors strung together with a kind of fanatic desperation.

To date we’ve seen the infamous Survivor2299 hoax site rile people up with its fake countdown, along with apparent listings for Fallout 4 across German online games retailers. Bethesda even filed an official trademark with the European Union back in 2013.

Then there was Kotaku‘s apparent Fallout 4 leak that pinpointed the New England city of Boston as the possible setting for the game, along with other vague details about the new game codenamed “Institute”.

Even still the rumor mill continues to churn out threadbare hints and pieces to spin into probabilities and possibilities, but it looks pretty likely that Fallout 4 will be announced during their E3 Showcase event.

Now that Prey 2 has been cancelled and Shinji Mikami’s The Evil Within has been released, Bethesda has some development wiggle room to focus their attention on the next Fallout game. We might also hear more about the upcoming DOOM game or maybe Dishonored 2?

And since Zenimax is hard at work readying Elder Scrolls Online for its console debut, it’s not very likely that another Elder Scrolls game will be unveiled at the event.

Bethesda affirms that it’ll release more info on the event in the coming months, but the actual reveals should be under wraps until June rolls around.

The post Bethesda Might Announce Fallout 4 At E3 2015 appeared first on VR World.

AMD’s (NASDAQ: AMD) future lies within China for many reasons, but not just as a growing market for its products. However, it is not the country that a company keen to outright takeover AMD hails from but rather it will be the source of strategic investments into AMD throughout 2015-2016.

VR World has learned China’s Loongson Technology, a microprocessor manufacturer that’s a joint venture between Beijing-based chip designer BLX IC Design Corp, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Computing Technology, is set to make key investments into AMD’s technologies and product lines. Loongson is best known for its Godson line of chips that use the MIPS architecture.

Earlier reports indicated that China’s BLX intended to initiate an outright takeover of AMD, but this course of action is unlikely due legal concerns from Intel and regulatory issues that might arise from US authorities.

These investments are set to begin immediately. Loongson’s targeted investments will be funded by a $19 billion war chest (120 billion RMB) that the company has set aside for such ventures.

Loongson and AMD have worked together before in the past. AMD’s HyperTransport and PCI South as well as North bridges were in previous Godson silicon, so for Loongson AMD is not entirely foreign territory. The two opened an R&D center in December 2003 in order to develop what the two hoped would be something to counter the goliath of Intel.

Investing in AMD’s various technologies and product lines would be a much easier transaction for Loongson. It would not have to deal with the regulatory burden the US government might impose, nor would it need to negotiate an x86 license from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC). It is not yet clear what the end result of such investments might look like, but it could be that Loongson markets future Godson systems with more AMD inside — such as GCN GPU architecture.

Key AMD staff were in Beijing in late January and early February likely in meetings related to this deal.

There’s plenty that needs to happen to make this official, but such a deal is much more likely than an outright takeover. More details will be posted as they are available. A response from AMD will be posted when available.

The post AMD’s Real China Play is Strategic Investment appeared first on VR World.

Google Maps has taken its Street View to the skies.

Google’s cameras went to Lake Pitkäjärvi in Finland where the Aurora Borealis shines. These Northern Lights will be explored also by unmanned space probes sent by NASA to study their effect on satellite communications. The display occurs when highly charged electrons from the solar wind interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the earth’s upper atmosphere.

Aurora Borealis with moon and stars over the frozen lake. Green denotes oxygen atoms, blue-violet is nitrogen.

The average individual rarely has a chance to glimpse this awesome display unless they are dressed for mighty cold temperatures. The conditions that make the glow visible only occur at certain latitudes and times of the year. The lake site is about 550 miles above sea level at a latitude of 63°9’0.01″ and longitude of 25°19’0.01″. This week’s weather hovers around 9°F and 98 percent humidity with a light dusting of snow.

Clouds replace the aurora borealis over Lake Pitkäjärvi.

Charles Swenson, a Utah State University professor of electrical and computer engineering, is the principal investigator for one of the NASA probes, known as the Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP). The missions are concerned with how the aurora affects Earth’s weather and how they impact Earth’s atmosphere. The ASSP probe will primarily study how heat from the aurora can impact satellites orbiting the Earth. Heat in and around the aurora is an expanded thermosphere. The expanded gas can increase the drag on satellites shifting their orbits significantly.” The probe also will look at how auroras and geomagnetic storms affect power grid infrastructure around the world.

There are five NASA suborbital sounding rockets. The rockets will launch from Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska. The ASSP probe is disposable according to Swenson. After approximately 10 minutes of collecting data it will splash down in the Arctic Ocean.

Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment (MTeX) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Image Credit: NASA/Berit Bland

The Mesosphere-Lower Thermosphere Turbulence Experiment (MTeX) will be flying on NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute. A second test, the Mesospheric Inversion-layer Stratified Turbulence (MIST) will study atmospheric turbulence and how atmospheric properties are mixed vertically by deploying trimethyl aluminum (TMA) vapor trails seen as whitish clouds that can be photographed for study according to Miguel Larsen, MIST principal investigator from Clemson University, South Carolina. These tracers will be released between 50 and 87 miles up and according to the scientists do not pose a risk to health or the environment.

The phenomena of the Aurora Borealis is named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas. The aurora inspired myths among many Native American tribes. Once such story as quoted by Ernest W. Hawkes says: “There is a hole in it through which the spirits [of the dead] pass to the true heavens. The spirits who live there light torches to guide the feet of new arrivals.”

The colors of these torches are caused by the element and the altitude at which it encounters the sun’s messenger. Oxygen flames green up to 150 miles in altitude or red higher. Nitrogen displays as blue up to 60 miles in altitude and purple/violet higher.

If you want to see the spirits dance, the displays are visible close to the planets’ magnetic poles (not to be confused with the geographic poles). In the US, the Upper Michigan Peninsula should provide a good view, as should the northern coast of Russia or Fairbanks, Alaska. For a current forecast across Alaska and Canada refer to the website of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The Northern Lights counterpart, aurora australis can be seen from Earth’s southern locations in Antarctica, South America, New Zealand and Australia. Additionally, auroras have been observed on most planets in our solar system from Venus to Neptune.

The post Google and NASA Explore the Northern Lights appeared first on VR World.

Mota, a successful company founded 15 years ago, is hawking a Kickstarter project aimed at GoPro owners. GoPro’s stock price isn’t affecting Mota’s enthusiasm for developing an accessory for the adventuresome camera wearer. The already established company wants you to help it develop a wireless battery charger for the GroPro Hero cameras. The new product would allow you to recharge your camera without removing it from its housing.

You probably are already familiar with Mota founded by Michael and Kevin Faro. The company makes imaginative products for mass marketing in wearables, portable power, and playful flying objects, such as drones and helicopters. Don’t forget its SmartPhone Anti-Lost Companion  that fits on a key ring. Already known for its external power battery the MOTA 4,000mAh power block which includes 5 different USB cable connections for Apple 30-pin, Apple Lightning, Micro USB, Mini USB, and Sony PSP, Mota is looking to connect to GoPro.

Kevin Faro, co-founder of Mota, discusses its proposed product

GoPro itself sells extra batteries and battery chargers. You wouldn’t want to be caught near the summit of Kilimanjaro with a dead battery in the video camera that is capturing your treacherous ascent. However, that extra battery you plan to replace a depleted one with requires you to open the device, risking dropping the battery in the snow or fouling the inside of the equipment with greasy fingers that just changed the spark plugs in your motorcycle right before the big race.

Mota GoPro’s battery charger is designed for action in the field.

You might ask why an established company is using Kickstarter to raise money for a new product. You could say they are doing test marketing. The company explains their reasoning in its FAQ’s. They need to make new tooling for the new design. “That’s a significant cost that we can’t justify unless we know there’s significant demand. Your backing will show us you want us to manufacture it.”

The wireless receiver technology that makes the Mota Wireless Charger compatible with Hero 3 and Hero 4 batteries has a pending patent.

As a reward for backing the Mota Wireless Charger for GoPro, you can get one at “a very special pre-release price”. Yesterday, Mota launched their Kickstarter project. Today, as this article is being written, two more backers have signed on, bringing the total to 65 for $4055 pledged. The goal is $15,000 by January 7, 2015, so if you are interested, don’t get caught up in Christmas Shopping and forget to pledge.

The intended release date is March/April 2015 when assembly, batch testing, complete and Reward fulfillments begin. In the meantime, you can buy completed Mota products at several retailers, including TigerDirect, Newegg, Walmart, Staples, and Best Buy.

The post Kickstarter Mota Project is Aimed at GoPro as Stock Slips appeared first on VR World.

Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL) has announced today two of its newest 4G LTE-capable SoCs aimed at the low-cost smartphone market.

The Marvell PXA1908 and PXA1936 are Marvell’s latest SoCs that are aimed squarely at a global market for global LTE deployments. Both the PXA1908 and the PXA1936 are Marvell’s own 64-bit entrants into the SoC market for low-cost smartphones, utilizing ARM’s own A53 CPUs in 4 and 8 core configurations in order to deliver reasonable performance at low power.

The PXA1936 is Marvell’s higher-end 64-bit offering with a combination of the 8 ARM Cortex-A53 with a Vivante GPU capable of 1080P display and video playback as well as support for a camera of up to 16 megapixels. This is in contrast with the PXA1908, which is also a 64-bit based SoC, but with only four ARM A53 CPU cores and a Vivante GPU capable of only 720P and an image signal processor for 8 megapixel cameras.

Also, Marvell has included some advanced security features into the PXA1936 in order to enable trusted computing, DRM and mobile payments. This means that OEMs can utilize this SoC for virtually any purpose and not worry about missing features. Speaking of features, it also has an integrated location and sensor hub for added efficiency and power reduction.

The modem on both of these SoC’s is Marvell’s own and is capable of LTE TDD and FDD and maximum speeds of Cat4, which is currently enough for what most operators are delivering outside of Japan and Korea, but still far behind industry leaders like Qualcomm with Cat6 LTE. Even so, nobody is shipping Cat6 LTE for low-cost smartphones, so Cat4 LTE is more than good enough for this market segment.

Marvell’s SoCs with multi-mode LTE are already certified for use on Verizon and China mobile and are already in the AT&T modem certification process and are testing in Japan and Europe as well. These SoCs are already in the process of shipping to customers and Marvell expects that customers will have devices on the market in 2015, which means we could see some fairly decently powered sub-$100 smartphones and tablets with Marvell’s chips inside of them.

The post Marvell Announces Two Low-Cost Global LTE SoCs appeared first on VR World.

Now, Nvidia says that when it filed its suits against Qualcomm and Samsung in Delaware District Court and with the ITC that it fully expected it would be sued in response. The company said in filings: “It’s a predictable tactic.” Nvidia continues saying that it was not surprised to see that Samsung had filed a lawsuit against them earlier this week and had included Velocity Micro, a ‘small’ customer of Nvidia’s based in Virginia (where the Samsung suit was filed).

Nvidia then goes on to talk about the claims that Samsung has made about infringed upon patents and performance claims, but says it is not ready yet to formally respond to Samsung’s lawsuit. However, it appears ready to respond to Samsung’s claims about false marketing claims regarding the Shield tablet and the Tegra K1 SoC. We already addressed these performance claims by Samsung, stating that the Exynos SoC in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was actually faster than Nvidia’s SHIELD tablet with the Tegra K1 SoC, and we really couldn’t find any industry standard benchmarks that corroborated Samsung’s story. But Nvidia went much further and decided to run a dozen or two benchmarks side by side and out of the box against the Galaxy Note 4 with the SHIELD tablet and posted their results in a graph.

Nvidia SHIELD vs Galaxy Note 4

As you can see, Nvidia’s SoC and tablet handily beat the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 handily in most tests, so there’s really no question that Samsung’s claims of Nvidia’s false marketing claims are fairly baseless as we had stated earlier.

Nvidia continues, stating that Samsung’s suing of Velocity Micro is unfortunate, especially considering how small Velocity Micro is. Nvidia states that Samsung is trying to keep their lawsuit in Virginia because they have a faster time to trial than most other jurisdictions in the US. Nvidia ends the posting with a caution, “It can be a dangerous strategy for one of the largest companies on the planet to decide to sue one of the smallest companies in all of Virginia. Samsung’s action does not change our analysis, or our determination. Our patent lawsuit in the ITC is moving forward and remains a far more serious problem for them.”

We have the full documentation, including the Samsung filing posted below if you’d like to read it.

Samsung v Nvidia in Virginia

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According to the agency, over 800,000 employees of the USPS have had their personal data stolen from the postal service’s servers. When you consider that the USPS employs just under 500,000 people (below 800,000 in the 90’s) then you realize that the data stolen includes both current and former employees of the USPS. The data breach mostly affects employees of the USPS rather than customers who may have done business with them. They do state that the USPS’ customers that have done business with them between the months of July and August may have had their contact information lost, but no credit card or payment data was obtained by the hackers.

The USPS has a long and detailed FAQ that answers consumers questions about the data breach and whether or not their data has been compromised. The interesting thing about this breach is that it isn’t a typical breach where hackers are going after customer data or going after credit card data or passwords. The hackers in this specifically went after the employee data of the USPS and were able to gain access to what appears to be all of it. The USPS isn’t clearly saying what employee data had been stolen, but the USPS official release states that it the data stolen includes, “The employee information potentially compromised in the incident included some employee personally identifiable information (PII), such as names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses and other information including beginning and end dates of employment, and emergency contact information.”

The other huge problem with this breach is that the USPS did not communicate this breach, which occurred in mid-September until now, almost two whole months later. This would mean that the employees that got hacked have had their information out and about without their knowledge for the past two months which means anyone could have caused financial ruin for the employees of the USPS. The fact is that the American Postal Workers Union should be absolutely up in arms about this and should sue the USPS for breaching their duty to protect and properly notify their employees of such risks in a timely fashion. We’ve already gotten quite angry with retailers taking a month to tell us that our credit card numbers have been stolen, yet even more personal potentially ruining data was kept from USPS employees for nearly 2 months.

There are currently no official suspects or leads in the case, but some publications are indicating that the attack may have come from Chinese hackers.

There is one more interesting tidbit in this USPS story, and that’s the fact that the USPS has taken this event as an opportunity to take a dig at the New York Times for their piece about the USPS and their involvement in tracking Americans’ mail. Here is the question and answer, verbatim.

Q: I’m concerned about a New York Times article that mentioned “surveillance” of mail. Is this connected with the cyber-intrusion incident and what is meant by “mail covers”?

A: The New York Times article is unrelated to the cyber breach. The New York Times article titled ‘Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.’ published on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 is extremely disappointing. The article is inaccurate and unfairly presents a one-sided version of the facts. First and foremost, the United State Postal Service respects the privacy of its customers and the sanctity of the mail. Contrary to what is suggested in the article, the Postal Service does not monitor the mail behavior of its customers and it does not maintain any system or program of so-called “surveillance.” Unfortunately, and perhaps to create a news story where there is none, the New York Times article conflates three independent mail programs in order to create the wholly false impression that there is some vast mail monitoring system in operation. While such an assertion may make for a more interesting news article – it is not based on the facts. Mail covers are used for criminal investigations. The increased use of mail covers in 2013 and 2014 is connected to single packages investigated involving illegal drug shipments. Eighty percent of all mail covers in 2014 were related to these important investigations. All other mail covers have actually decreased by more than 30 percent since 2012. It is unfortunate that the New York Times presented such a distorted view of the facts. Its readership would have benefited from a more even-handed approach. The Postal Service processed and delivered 158 billion pieces of mail last year, of which only a tiny percentage was subjected to the mail cover process. The people who need to be concerned about mail covers are those who use the U.S. Mail to ship illegal drugs or who are otherwise breaking the law.

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Update: Dropbox denies that it was hacked and posted the following on its blog.

Recent news articles claiming that Dropbox was hacked aren’t true. Your stuff is safe. The usernames and passwords referenced in these articles were stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox. Attackers then used these stolen credentials to try to log in to sites across the internet, including Dropbox. We have measures in place to detect suspicious login activity and we automatically reset passwords when it happens.

Attacks like these are one of the reasons why we strongly encourage users not to reuse passwords across services. For an added layer of security, we always recommend enabling 2 step verification on your account.

Update: 10/14/2014 12:30am PT

A subsequent list of usernames and passwords has been posted online. We’ve checked and these are not associated with Dropbox accounts.

In a recent Pastebin posting, an anonymous hacker, who is asking for BTC donations to post more account usernames and passwords. He or she has already posted hundreds of account credentials, which check out to be authentic accounts if you test any of them out. The irony of this situation is that Dropbox had just recently posted a blog about now getting baited by phishing or malware on their website. Obviously, the 6,937,081 accounts that have supposedly been compromised are not all going to be the result of phishing or malware, but very likely due to some vulnerability in Dropbox’s own systems.

Most of the passwords that people have tested are expired passwords and may be flagged by Dropbox’s own systems as vulnerable accounts. Up until the time of publication, Dropbox has not published any official statements on their website or twitter account, but if you want to ensure that your Dropbox account is safe from account hacking you should enable 2 factor authentication (2FA). This means that even if someone has access to your username and password, they will still need to authenticate through your phone or an email account. This is a mandatory safeguard to keep yourself protected from such major password hacks and obviously, you need to enable it if you are serious about your own security.

Dropbox has recently also come under scrutiny from people like Edward Snowden who claim that the service is unsafe for people to use without government spying. They also have the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, on their board of directors which is seen as a very anti-privacy move considering that she was involved in many of the spying programs implemented today in one way or another

The post Hacker Claims to Have Access to 7 Million Dropbox Accounts appeared first on VR World.

As had originally been reported, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) had only briefly addressed their decision to pull ads from Gamasutra due to customer feedback regarding the publication’s editorial. Many publications have decided to pile on to the sensationalism of GamerGate and decided to claim that Intel is a misogynist company and that the company did this out of sexism. Even though, as stated before, the company employs a female President of the company and the head of the company’s desktop PC division is also a woman. At Intel, men and women are effectively equals and the idea of sex and sexism is almost a non-issue. Intel is without a doubt one of the most progressive companies as a whole in the tech industry and is one of the greenest if not the greenest tech companies in the US.

The backlash from this move has been vigorous and mostly unfounded, but Intel’s management appears to have decided to address the matter directly through a press release that they just sent out stating,

“We take feedback from customers seriously. For the time being, Intel has decided not to continue with our current ad campaign on the gaming site Gamasutra. However, we recognize that our action inadvertently created a perception that we are somehow taking sides in an increasingly bitter debate in the gaming community. That was not our intent, and that is not the case. When it comes to our support of equality and women, we want to be very clear: Intel believes men and women should be treated the same. And, diversity is an integral part of our corporate strategy and vision with commitments to improve the diversity of our workforce. And while we respect the right of individuals to have their personal beliefs and values, Intel does not support any organization or movement that discriminates against women. We apologize and we are deeply sorry if we offended anyone.

Clearly, GamerGate has expanded far beyond its origins and now even the tech companies are getting roped into it. But as it appears, Intel believes that they also need to apologize to those that believe that Intel did this out of sexism or misogyny, which is patently false. Even so, in today’s corporate culture companies are big and prominent as Intel are forced to try to appease both sides.

The post Intel Responds to Pulling of Gamasutra Ads appeared first on VR World.

Our sources are confirming to us that AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) will undergo another major restructuring of the company. This restructuring follows the recent reorganization of the company’s overall organization headed by Dr. Lisa Su and John Byrne. The latest restructuring was announced around the time of Computex and based upon a split of the company into two separate divisions. This restructuring seemed like one merely on paper, shifting over some responsibilities from one person to the other but keeping all divisions and staff intact.

Those two divisions are the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group and Computing and Graphics Business Group. As stated before, John Byrne will be responsible for the Computing and Graphics Business Group while Lisa Su will head up the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Business Group. Now, the restructuring that is being discussed now (and supposedly already being set in motion) is supposed to be an extension of June’s reorganization/restructuring. This will very likely result in some people changing their roles within the company as well as some people being laid off, as generally seem to happen with major reorganizations. While there are no definite figures of how many people will be let go, it did not sound like those numbers were massive like the culling of 2009 through 2012.

Unfortunately, there aren’t that many details about exactly how many people could be laid off, but this sounds like a long term plan execution rather than a reactionary cut due to poor earnings. However, there were some indications that this next restructuring would very likely come after AMD’s 3Q 2014 earnings which is on the 16th. It remains to be seen how investors will react to this news, but if AMD has poor earnings for 3Q 2014, it may be seen as a reactionary restructuring rather than a planned one which is how it was interpreted by our sources. We are labeling this as a rumor because it isn’t an official announcement, however this is essentially already a done deal.

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It looks like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has continued to gain momentum with its automotive division with today’s announcement that Honda’s newest Android-powered Honda Connect will be powered by Nvidia’s Tegra SoC. Today’s announcement marks yet another major design win for Nvidia’s Tegra SoC, even though Nvidia isn’t quite saying which Tegra chips are going to be used in Honda’s 2015 model year vehicles, starting in Europe.

2015 Honda Civic with Honda Connect

What we do know is that Honda’s new Honda Connect infotainment system will be using Nvidia’s Tegra mobile SoC chips and those new Honda Connect systems will be in Honda’s new 2015 Civic, Civic Tourer and CRV. Nvidia states that with Honda, Nvidia has marked down its 19th design win with Nvidia technology, but do not say exactly how many are using Nvidia Tegra SoCs (and not combining Intel + GeForce). According to Nvidia there are 6 million cars on the road today with Nvidia Tegra inside of them and they expect that number to balloon to 25 million within the next five years, a very confident and solid growth figure.

Honda Connect with Nvidia Tegra inside

The Tegra-powered Honda Connect is comprised of a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen display for satellite navigation and backup camera as well as AM/FM/DAB and vehicle information. Honda will have its own application store, as seen above, called Honda App Center where developers and Honda can work together to bring their Android apps to the car. This may solve the problem that most automotive systems have right now, which is a complete and utter lack of relevant automotive applications.

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