Foxconn, the massive assembly line responsible for the manufacturing of a lot of Apple products, amongst other electronic devices, is apparently making a $5.3 billion bid to buy display maker Sharp. Sharp has faced some troubles financially over the last few years so a buyout would be feasible at this …
Read More »Google Chrome is getting a significant speed boost soon
Google has been working on optimizing the Chrome browser for a while now. Last year the Chrome team announced that it would be trying to reduce RAM usage and now the browser is set to be up to 25 percent faster thanks to an upcoming update that targets performance improvements. …
Read More »Court rules lawsuit against Oculus founder to go ahead
Today a US judge ruled that a lawsuit filed against Oculus co-founder, Palmer Luckey, will go ahead. The lawsuit comes from a company known as Total Recall Technologies, which employed Luckey in 2011 to build a head-mounted display, prior to the Oculus Rift Kickstarter in 2012. Total Recall Technologies claims …
Read More »Cheap Oil sees electric vehicle sales slide in 2015
Although there is still some debate over whether we'll use hydrogen, electricity or perhaps not even own cars at all in the future, there has been a big push for electric vehicles (EV) in recent years. Unfortunately for their proponents though, falling oil prices have seen sales of EVs fall …
Read More »Amazon’s 30 minute drone delivery has distance, weight limits
As advanced as the drones of the future which deliver our online purchases to us sooner than ever before are, there will be some limitations. Despite Amazon's drones being designed to operate efficiently in various environments, chances are they won't be able to travel much more than 10 miles from …
Read More »A law firm is trying to stop Sony from trademarking ‘Let’s Play’
We recently heard that Sony is currently trying to trademark the term ‘Let's Play', a fairly common phrase used by YouTubers and streamers. Now, a law firm specializing in video games/entertainment is formally protesting this, arguing that the term is now ‘generic' and should not be trademarked. The US Patent and Trademark …
Read More »New study predicts robots to take five million jobs by 2020
The race is on it seems to find a career that won't be taken over by a robot in years to come. A new study from economic forum, Davos (not Seaworth), has suggested as many as five million jobs in developed countries around the world will be lost over the next five …
Read More »Microsoft’s Hololens lasts up to 5.5 hours on battery, FOV may improve
Microsoft began allowing developers to experience its augmented reality headset, the HoloLens in the company's flagship store in New York City recently. While developers can experiment with different tools, Microsoft has been tight-lipped on details such as retail, pricing, and battery life. However, at a recent event in Tel Aviv, …
Read More »Netflix confirms plans to shut off proxy access
Netflix is a decent enough service but due to geographic content restrictions and licensing issues, the US tends to have the best overall library of content, causing many subscribers across the world to use VPNs or proxy services to spoof their location. In the past, Netflix hasn't really done much …
Read More »Forget passenger drones, what about a drone ambulance?
Although drones have promised lots of interesting developments in film making, surveillance and delivery, they are getting powerful enough to transport people, as we saw recently. But forget making travel easy for the rich, transporting injured people between the scene of an accident and a hospital quickly and without disturbance …
Read More »U.S. government to invest $4 billion in autonomous cars
President Obama's secretary of transportation, Anthony Foxx, announced this week that the government had pledged to spend $4 billion over the next 10 years to help advanced autonomous vehicle technology. It's currently thought that partially self-piloted vehicles will be available by 2020 and fully autonomous ones by 2025, but this …
Read More »Razer is selling its peripherals at half-price for 24 hours
Razer is running a pretty big sale over on its store today, offering Razer Insider members 50 percent off all products on its store aside from the Blade systems to celebrate CES 2016, which just ended. This means mice, keyboards and headsets will be had for significantly cheaper if you …
Read More »Ultra-HD Blu-rays are going to be a bit pricey
With TV manufacturers giving 4K TVs a huge push to consumers right now it is about time we started actually getting some ultra-HD content available. Several studios have plans to launch UHD Blu-rays this year but it looks like we can expect prices of UHD movies to be fairly high …
Read More »Microsoft rejects pitch for League of Legends Hololens match viewer
Right now, Microsoft is running a ‘Share Your Idea' program for the Hololens, in which people can submit potential applications for the Augmented Reality headset. One of the most popular potential apps, which recieved a lot of votes, was a League of Legends match viewer which would allow Hololens wearers …
Read More »Google is now getting serious about VR
Google is looking to get involved in the Virtual Reality space as well, following on from the likes of Facebook/Oculus, Sony and HTC/Valve, Google will now be stepping up its efforts with a dedicated VR division, headed by the boss behind the Google Cardboard headset, which was the company's first …
Read More »Google’s self-driving car has had some issues
Google's self-driving car technology is impressive and has been interesting to follow but it has had its fair share of problems according to Google's latest report. Between November 2014 and September 2015, Google's self-driving car experienced a total of 272 technical failures and was almost involved in 13 accidents. According …
Read More »Fleye shows not every drone needs exposed blades
As drones become more popular, the conversation has turned to safety. With their multiple rotors, exposed blades and ever increasing weights, there is some danger to them flying around near humans. Not so much with Fleye though. The circular drone was revealed at last week's CES show and using an …
Read More »Sony’s ‘Let’s Play’ trademark has been rejected for now
It recently came to light that Sony is attempting to trademark the term ‘Let's Play', a phrase that most are familiar with from YouTube as content creators create playthroughs of games. However, it seems that the US Patent and Trademark Office aren't satisfied with Sony's application and has rejected it- …
Read More »Apple has secured half the smartwatch market in under a year
Although the smartwatch industry has hardly taken off in the way many manufacturers would have hoped, it turns out the analysts were right about Apple helping seed what is there. In less than a year since its launch, Apple has secured more than 50 per cent of the whole smartwatch …
Read More »HTC Vive pre-orders to open up next month
Just last week Oculus began gearing up for the launch of the Rift with pre-orders opening up and shipments due out in March. However, there is another big VR launch on the way in the next few months- the HTC Vive, which will also have its price and ship date …
Read More »Tesla scales back car automation, for now
Although most analysts believe that full vehicle automation won't be ready until 2020, Tesla recently jumped the gun and introduced its take on the feature back in October last year to mixed praise and concern. In line with the latter response, Tesla has now released an update which restricts where …
Read More »Researchers claim PlayStationVR to cost between $400-$600
There has been a lot of talk surrounding the price of virtual reality this week after the Oculus Rift officially went up for pre-order with an unexpected $599.99 price tag. However, we still have two more virtual reality headsets to launch this year, one of them being the PlayStatioonVR, which …
Read More »Chinese ‘Hoverboard’ booth raided at CES
Despite the two wheeled ‘hoverboards' being one of the more recent boom and bust industries in the tech world, with bans and warnings of dangerous batteries, companies are still iterating on the idea. Are they allowed to though? One Chinese manufacturer has had its CES booth raided by U.S. marshals …
Read More »PlayStationVR briefly listed on Amazon for $800
It is clear at this point that virtual reality is going to be expensive to get into, especially if you want a first generation device. While the Oculus Rift was given an official $600 price tag yesterday, we have yet to see official prices for the HTC Vive or PlayStationVR, …
Read More »Palmer Luckey insists that Oculus isn’t making profit on the Rift
Yesterday, pre-orders for the Oculus Rift officially went live, revealing a £499.99 price tag that caught many people off guard and left some questioning exactly why the Rift ended up being so expensive, particularly since the development kits came in at around the $300-$350 mark. However, Oculus founder, Palmer Luckey …
Read More »Papercraft 3D printing shows up at CES 2016
As much as 3D printers are an awesome invention offering home-brew modellers and enthusiasts a chance to create lots of fun items out of plastic, you do still need resin or some other uncommon building materials to actually construct them with. Not so with Mcor's Arke though, as it uses …
Read More »Forget flying cars, passenger drones could be the future
2015 was in many ways, a disappointing year. For all of its technological breakthroughs and attempts at hoverboards, the hard truth is that the year came and went without a viable flying car. Doc Brown would be sorely disappointed. However perhaps there's hope yet, as despite the failings of the …
Read More »HTC shows off the Vive Pre
A couple of weeks back, HTC teased that it had to delay the Vive VR headset due to a major technological breakthrough, which it promised to show off this year at CES. Well, that time has come and HTC now has a new development kit called the Vive Pre, which …
Read More »Razer is releasing a motion sensing, gesture tracking webcam
Razer is usually one of the key companies to look out for during CES as it often makes new product announcements or shows off interesting prototypes. This year, Razer came to the trade show armed with a few things, one of which was the self-proclaimed ‘world's most advanced webcam'. The …
Read More »You won’t be charged for your Oculus Rift pre-order until it ships
Today is the day that we finally learn how much the final version of the Oculus Rift will cost, with pre-orders set to go live in just a couple of hours time. While some may have prepared their bank accounts for the purchase already, Oculus won't actually be charging for …
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