There are a lot of perks for being an Amazon Prime member. There's exclusive movies and TV shows, free access to huge libraries of books and music and free delivery. However for those living in select cities, Prime Now, a one or two hour delivery service is available. There are …
Read More »John Smedley steps down from Daybreak to head new company
Its official, John Smedley has left Daybreak Studios for good, after stepping down as President in order to take some time away following a series of personal attacks alongside some high-profile DDOS attacks on the company's game servers. It was initially thought that Smedley would return to the former SOE …
Read More »Sony’s Aerosene drone shows of VTOL in new video
What Sony would do with its partnership with Japanese automation specialist, ZMP, was pondered over by many in the know when it was announced earlier this year, but now we all know. Aerosene, the joint venture formed by both firms, showed off its new VTOL commercial drone yesterday, as well …
Read More »Tesla S P85D sets record for distance driven on single charge
While electric cars might be quiet, economical and much more futuristic-feeling than the gas guzzling vehicles we've been used to for the past century, they do have a number of drawbacks: namely charging time and a relatively short distance per charge. However, if you drive carefully, keep the air conditioning …
Read More »MegaUpload user still wants his files back
As much as we can argue over whether Kim Dotcom deserved to be arrested and his website, MegaUpload, shut down back in 2012, there is one group we can all agree were victims: the users. MegaUpload members had no warning that one January morning three years ago that the files …
Read More »Twitter goes after site network that saved politicians’ deleted tweets
Twitter has gone ahead and shut down a network of sites that were dedicated to preserving and archiving deleted tweets from politicians. The network was run by the Open State Foundation, which has revealed that Twitter suspended their API access last Friday. The social network stated that the suspension was …
Read More »NASA funds research to make human waste more useful in space
Going to the toilet in space isn't easy. Without gravity human bowels work slightly differently, and there's the ever present problem of what comes out floating around the cabin or space station, as happened during the Apollo 10 mission. There's also the problem of disposal, as we don't want any …
Read More »BT: US telecom companies stifle competition
Breaking America is difficult, whether you're a pop star or a giant telecoms company, apparently. UK based BT has called on U.S. regulators to change the current laws on the sale of network usage, making it possible for different companies to access each other's network at a regulated price. As …
Read More »Two arrested at Pokemon World Championships over illegal guns
A pair of individuals, one 18 the other 27, visiting the Pokémon World Championships in Boston this weekend, have been arrested and detained following the discovery of several illegal guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in their vehicle. Event security were alerted to the pair when they posted images of …
Read More »Spotify’s new privacy policy demands much more from users
In our more privacy concious world, the policies that our favourite software makers operate under can be very important. In the wake of updates made to the music streaming service, Spotify's privacy policy, many fans have dropped the service, citing excerpts that demand access to their private media on their device, as …
Read More »Intel: Our foundry business is well, we have new customers
Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., claims that despite of lack of any announcements concerning its contract semiconductor manufacturing business unit, the latter is growing and is still an important opportunity for the chip giant. Moreover, it has new customers that Intel just cannot name. Intel established its …
Read More »Someone turned Chatroulette in to a first person shooter
If you've been on the internet at any point over the last few years, then you have probably heard of sites like Chatroulette, which put you in a video chat with complete strangers over the web. These sites have been used for interesting and entertaining projects on the past but …
Read More »Spotify swiftly apologises following privacy concerns
Earlier today, Spotify updated its terms and conditions and thanks to the wording, it sounded like the streaming service wasn't taking user privacy very seriously at all. Fortunately, the company's CEO, Daniel Ek, is eager to clear things up a bit and try to stop people from freaking out. In …
Read More »It turns out Project Ara didn’t fail a drop test after all
Earlier this week, Google delayed the launch of its modular smartphone, Project Ara. The device will now only be available publicly sometime next year. At the time, the Project Ara Twitter account tweeted that it would be ditching the electromagnet system in favour of something new following a failed drop …
Read More »Amazon to stop accepting flash advertisements from September
The slow downfall of Adobe Flash continues, as Amazon announces that from September onwards it will no longer be accepting flash based advertisements on its site. The decision was apparently driven by recent updates to several popular web browsers, including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. In recent years, Flash has …
Read More »Movies makers want to depose suspected pirates
Remember Dallas Buyers Club? The film featured Matthew Mcconaughey dealing with his personal prejudices, a deadly diagnosis and helping others along the way. It was a beautiful movie about altruism, determination and a struggle against insurmountable forces. When it comes to those that pirated the movie though, the company behind …
Read More »First they came for the cheaters. Why Ashley Madison hack is bad news
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist,” begins the poetic version of Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous statement about the cowardice of German intellectuals during the rise of the Nazi party. It's a speech that has many applications when the topic of free …
Read More »Fancy sending your name to Mars on the next lander?
With all the excitement of Space X's recoverable launch attempts and the Philae lander telling us all about comets, we're almost spoilt when it comes to exciting advances in space. However it doesn't stop there, as in March next year, NASA is launching its InSight lander to Mars, where it …
Read More »Dotcom’s BABOOM launches, promises bigger artist profits
The music sharing, streaming and networking service BABOOM, originally founded by Kim Dotcom, has now officially launched. Designed to be a competitor of the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, BABOOM offers a mixture of free and paid for streaming content to users, as well as a premium account service …
Read More »Ashley Madison hack confirms paid-delete didn’t work
Although the hackers behind the recent data theft of infidelity website AshleyMadison.com claimed that they were doing so due to the twisted morality of the site, they also wanted to point out that the unscrupulous owners were happy to charge people to delete accounts and then not do so entirely. …
Read More »Kickstarter launched for a giant robot duel
MegaBots Inc is back again with a new Kickstarter campaign to build a giant fighting robot, following its previously unsuccessful attempt. Last year, MegaBots asked the internet for $1.8 million to construct a team of 15 feet tall robots, which would be piloted by humans and fight in an arena …
Read More »YouTubers now have official guidelines for advertising
Google Adsense revenue has taken a hit over the years thanks to the popularity of browser extensions like Adblock Plus. As a result, many YouTubers have resorted to outside sponsorships and advertising deals that can be integrated directly in to their videos. Since these sorts of deals are so new, …
Read More »Sony has apparently finalised Project Morpheus hardware
The first wave of consumer virtual reality headsets are on the way, kicking off with Valve's headset, supposedly at some point this year, followed by the Oculus Rift next year and finally, Sony's console oriented headset, Project Morpheus. We have been following Morpheus for some time now but it looks …
Read More »Amazon announces an end to its trade-in program
Amazon's trade-in scheme, which allows customers to send in old products like games, books and clothes to earn credit against other purchases, is coming to a close. Anyone wishing to take advantage of it has until the 31st of August to get their returns in, after which Amazon will no …
Read More »Dotcom, Universal recording reveals existence of industry ‘bad list’
Although Kim Dotcom has said a lot about the corporate and governmental people he's dealt with over the years running file lockers and other various services, there has rarely been proof to back up that these conversations actually took place. Now though, he's revealed a recording of a conversation between …
Read More »More sites shut down comments, what’s to be done?
For a long time, certain sites and their comment sections have been considered easily-accessible, but murky parts of the internet, that few wish to spend much time in. Now, a number of high profile websites have recently announced the closure of their comment sections, citing too much management and moderation …
Read More »Copyright lobby group spends 15 times more than it pays to artists
Copyright lobby groups that hope to push pirates and organisations that it feels benefit unfairly from piracy, to pay up, ostensibly do so because they care about the artists they represent. In practice though, that ideal rarely plays out. Take Rightscorp for example, which recently published its quarterly financial reports, only …
Read More »Boston Dynamics shows off six foot bipedal, running robot
If you thought the video of the MIT Cheetah robot, that can run faster than the world's quickest human sprinters was creepy, take a peek at the new video from Google (soon to be Alphabet) owned Boston Dynamics, which has a six foot tall bipedal robot named Atlas, running through …
Read More »British music videos to have enforced age ratings
In further measures that are designed to protect children from content that is not deemed suitable for them, the music industry has taken a voluntary step – following advice from the government – to add age-gates to music videos aimed at older viewers. That means that moving forward, British artists …
Read More »Google announces Project Sunroof, offers free solar data
Solar panel adoption is happening quicker today than it ever has before, which is why more than one per cent of the world's electricity is now delivered direct from the sun. However Google wants to help improve that even more, by taking data it has from its Google Earth imagery …
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