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General Tech

generalised tech from across the globe

Developer manages to pair Moto 360 with iPhone

It turns out that there is a way to get an Android Wear device to play nicely with iOS, as one developer managed to pair the popular Moto 360 with an iPhone, allowing the smart watch to receive notifications from iOS. Official support is unlikely though, after all, Apple will …

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Judge throws out two class-action lawsuits against Google

A California court has decided to dismiss two class-action lawsuits against Google, which accused the company of bad business practises, despite a lack of evidence. Eventually, it was decided that the plaintiffs could not sufficiently support their claims. The first class action lawsuit claimed that because Google has other Android device …

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Twitch to host its own convention this year

Twitch has decided that it is going to start hosting its own convention this year. TwitchCon was announced yesterday and will hit San Fransisco in September from the 25th to the 26th. According to the official announcement page, this will be a ‘interactive convention', inviting in broadcasters and viewers alike. …

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Samsung buys LoopPay to compete with Apple Pay

Samsung has acquired LoopPay, a Kickstarted mobile wallet provider that allows payments to take place on existing magnetic strip readers. This will help Samsung compete against Apple's new Apple Pay service, which has taken off in the US and is due to expand to other territories this year. Speculation about …

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Dell starts accepting bitcoin payments in UK

Dell has announced that it plans to start accepting bitcoins as a form of payment in the UK, following a successful trial of the digital currency over in the US. Dell initially began accepting crypto-currency as a form of payment in July last year but it was a US only …

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Want to buy 50,000 Bitcoins?

Bitcoins sale

In a rare opportunity, thanks to the United States Marshals Service and Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road fame, you are now able to bid on 50,000 seized Bitcoins. These Bitcoins are currently worth around £7.7 million (or $11.9 million USD) and were seized from Ulbricht when the feds snatched his laptop away from him in a San …

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The Pebble Smartwatch can now run Android Wear apps

The Pebble is about to get a bit more exciting, it has a long battery life, its affordable and now its compatible with apps built for Google's own wearable operating system, Android Wear. Compatibility comes via the latest update to the Pebble App on the Google Play Store. Version 2.3 …

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First UK eSports arena opens in London next month

eSports has become a big deal over in Asia and North America with thousands of people attending pro-gaming events throughout the year and now, the UK is joining the ranks with the first UK eSports arena opening up in London next month. In March, the Gfinity Arena will open up, …

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Asus USB 3.1 Hands-on Preview

The widespread introduction of USB 3.1-capable components is already under way. That roll-out is currently centred around motherboards providing support for the 10Gbps ports, but further devices will make use of the higher speed connector in coming months. We get an early hands-on look at one of Asus' upcoming USB …

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Sony to launch smartglasses in March

A few weeks have passed since Google took Google Glass development back behind closed doors but the wearable's failure to truly take off hasn't deterred Sony from launching its own pair of smart glasses, which will arrive on the 10th of March. The SmartEyeGlass as its called will launch in …

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US approves drone usage for films, not delivery

Drones were always going to need regulation. As fun a toy as they are, as they get lighter, smaller and more powerful, they have the potential to travel higher and further and that means they could not only invade people's privacy, but also pose a real hazard to civilian and military …

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Computers are now better than you at recognising stuff

ILSVRC

On average, us flesh sacks can recognise stuff in pictures pretty well, with an error rate of around 5.1% according to a recent study. Previously computers could come pretty close to that, getting around 6.66% of objects wrong. Now however, a new computer vision system from Microsoft Research is actually managing to …

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Qualcomm has made a Snapdragon 4K streaming stick

Qualcomm has announced its new entry in to the streaming market with its new Snapdragon-based Chromecast competitor, capable of streaming 4K. Unfortunately, Qualcomm's streaming stick won't be made available to consumers and is instead there as a reference design for third-parties to license out. Third-party manufacturers will be able to …

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Toshiba starts making cameras for Project Ara

Toshiba has shown off two new camera modules that it is developing for Google's modular smartphone, currently named ‘Project Ara'. There are two versions at present, a 5 megapixel camera module and a 13 megapixel one. These cameras can be swapped in and out of the handset, allowing for easy …

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Project Ara may appear at MWC next month

Google has been showing off more and more of Project Ara during recent months and we may get to see even more of the modular smartphone at the Mobile World Congress, which starts next month, in Barcelona. Around 50 of the device's modular components are also due to be displayed …

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Virgin Media to spend £3 billion improving fibre network

Virgin Media has today announced plans to spend £3 billion improving its fibre-optic broadband network, creating 6000 jobs in the process. These improvements will roll out over the next five years and is the largest investment in the UK's broadband infrastructure made in the past decade. The investment is currently …

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Mozilla to block unsigned add-ons from Firefox

It turns out that Mozilla is planning to tighten up its security restrictions regarding add-ons for the Firefox browser. In a blog post the company said that the decision to block unsigned add-ons was made to reduce a user's chances of installing a dodgy add-on that can do dodgy things …

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Android Wear shipments only hit 720,000 last year

Android Wear smart watches have gotten off to a slow start as multiple companies only managed to ship a total of 720,000 units during 2014, according to analyst firm, Canalys. The company also revealed that the Moto 360 was indeed the most popular device. 4.6 million wearable devices were shipped …

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Samsung Smart TVs inserting ads in to third-party apps

It turns out that Samsung's smart TVs are inserting unwanted adverts in to TV shows and movies played on third-party apps. Several owners have begun complaining about a silent Pepsi advert interrupting playback every ten minutes or so. Obviously this isn't supposed to be happening, so Samsung has launched a …

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Swatter arrested, faces five year prison sentence

19-year-old American, Brandon Wilson, was recently arrested and had his Las Vegas home raided in connection to several incidents of swatting. Swatting has become a significant problem for live streamers over the last year or two. For those who don't know, swatting is a ‘prank' in which a hoax call is …

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Samsung denies that its TVs are invading your privacy

News broke recently about Samsung's new Smart TV privacy policy, which was unfortunately poorly worded and made it sound like the TVs were transmitting your conversations to a third-party via voice recognition software. This stirred up a bit of controversy but the Korean device maker is looking to clear things …

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