No longer around in its original form, Isohunt was one of the world's most popular torrent sites in its day. The founder, Gary Fung, fought courts for years keeping the site open, but ultimately relented after a loss and shut the site down. While it may have reformed under a …
Read More »The PirateBay homepage has a countdown
File sharers the world over have been a little worried for the past few weeks, as despite managing to stay online for over 10 years without real incident (save for a little scare in '06), the Pirate Bay seemed to have finally been taken down by authorities after its front-end server …
Read More »Samsung’s Tizen OS will be making its way to Smart TVs this year
Samsung's Tizen operating system has been in development for some time, originally for smartphones. However, now it looks like the OS will also be making its way over to smart TVs in hopes that it will make it easier for TVs to connect to other devices. Samsung announced the move …
Read More »Katie Hopkins tweets gain police attention for ‘offence’
Britain's favourite hate figure and Sun columnist, Katie Hopkins, is once again under fire for comments made on Twitter. This time around though she's garnered police attention after over 7,000 people signed a petition demanding that the authorities take action for her “racist” and “offensive” tweets. Hopkins is a semi-regular …
Read More »‘The Interview’ pirates are mostly from outside the US
Have you seen ‘The Interview'? The film featuring Seth Rogen and James Franco that was summarily pulled from release on Christmas day due to hacker threats, only to be launched simultaneously in independent theatres and on Youtube/Google Play? Chances are if you did, that you live within the United States, …
Read More »GlobalFoundries denies problems with 14nm: everything is as planned
GlobalFoundries, the world’s second largest contract manufacturer of chips, late on Tuesday denied existence of problems with the ramp up of production using 14nm fabrication process. According to the foundry, it specifically stockpiles manufacturing equipment at a warehouse so that to install it once the fab 8 facility becomes compatible …
Read More »GlobalFoudries stops installations of 14nm tools, could delay production
Although GlobalFoundries has licensed 14nm FinFET manufacturing technology from Samsung Electronics back in May, 2014, it looks like the company may have to delay mass production using the fabrication process. According to a media report, the company has stopped installation of equipment required to make chips using 14nm FinFET technology. …
Read More »iTunes now offers refunds in Europe
Apple has changed the iTunes refund policy making it so that Europeans can return almost any digital item bought from the store within two weeks of purchase. However, as you would expect, there are some caveats in place to avoid abuse of the system. If you open an app, or …
Read More »Microsoft may launch a new web browser for Windows 10
Microsoft is reportedly working on an all new web browser to launch alongside Windows 10 in 2015. The project is currently codenamed ‘Spartan' and will see the company move away from Internet Explorer, which has garnered up quite a bad reputation over the years. According to ZDNet, the new app …
Read More »Game of Thrones crowned as most pirated show of 2014
Game of Thrones has managed to become the most pirated show of 2014, continuing its annual winning streak. This year's season was downloaded more than eight million times via BitTorrent, steaming ahead of the rest of the competition. The Walking Dead came in at a distant second place with just …
Read More »Sale bargains – check those labels carefully
Walking around the Boxing Day bargains, some KitGuru readers were keen to share their experience of what appears to be some quite blatant product mis-labeling. Naturally, we investigated, here are the initial results. Over the years, there have been some classic mis-labeling incidents across the tech world. Some are legitimate, …
Read More »Independent cinemas rally round The Interview
One of the most interesting aspects of the whole hacking of Sony and the debacle that is The Interview movie, has been that when the big cinema chains backed out of showing it over fears of box office losses and viewer endangerment, many independent theatres stepped up. Cinemas like the Alamo …
Read More »Samsung Smart TV’s to get PlayStation Now game streaming
In an announcement today Samsung and Sony declared a partnership that will see the PlayStation Now game streaming service being built into select Samsung Smart TV's next year. This will allow customers in the United States and Canada to stream games directly to their Samsung TV without any need for downloads. When this is launched …
Read More »Scientists are using 200 PS3 consoles to research black holes
The last generation consoles may still be useful after all as scientists have configured 200 PlayStation 3 consoles together to create a low cost super computer, which is being used to help research black holes. The console array was first created all the way back in 2007, featuring just 16 …
Read More »It turns out that The Interview will be shown on Christmas day afterall
It turns out that Sony will be letting some theaters show The Interview on Christmas day after all. The film's Thursday release was originally cancelled following threats from a hacking group tied to North Korea. However, it looks like Sony has changed its mind following public criticism. The owner of …
Read More »Lego Pillar of Autumn replica took 3.5 years and $7000 to build
It took a fair few years and upwards of $7000 but we finally have a massive replica of the Pillar of Autumn, one of the huge spaceships from the Halo games. Over all, the Lego replica weighs 100kg and measures in at 2.15 meters long. The Pillar of Autumn is one of …
Read More »Kim Dotcom 2012 mansion raid deemed legal by Supreme Court
It seems ridiculous at this point, but Kim Dotcom is still awaiting his extradition trial, despite the fact that he was originally arrested almost three years ago, during a 20th January raid on his mansion. In the raid's aftermath, we learned that helicopters and heavily armed (though oddly not armoured) …
Read More »Sony Pictures lawyer says The Interview will still be released
The general public may still get to see The Interview after all as a Sony Pictures lawyer has stated that the company is “fighting to get this picture distributed”, although nobody quite knows how just yet. The Interview was originally due to release in cinemas later this week but has …
Read More »Google looking to partner up with manufacturers for self driving cars
Google is reportedly looking for manufacturers to partner up with to help create its self-driving cars. So far, Google has produced its own cars but the company had no intention to produce large numbers of them single-handed, as you would probably expect. “We don’t particularly want to become a car …
Read More »Google sues Mississippi attorney general over MPAA ties
Mississippi Attorney General, Jim Hood, has apparently been giving Google a hard time for the past year and a half, with repeated urges to try and have it block content online. Now though Google is turning the tables on him and suing him for having close ties with the MPAA, …
Read More »The Pirate Bay returns… with popups
Last week one of the world's most iconic torrent search sites, The Pirate Bay, was downed by Swedish authorities in a raid on a server farm located in the side of a mountain, along with several other prominent sites. Since then its future has been uncertain, with the admins speculating about …
Read More »The Internet as we know it does not exist in Cuba. Yet.
U.S. trade embargoes have meant that, as the internet as we know it began to take shape, Cuba was left behind. With no access to the Internet at all until 1996 and only very limited, slow and censored access at present, things are about to change in a big way for the …
Read More »GlobalFoundries: Customized and SOI process technologies gain importance
While non-standard fabrication processes are sometimes challenging and make it harder to re-use intellectual property across different product lineups, they are just what the doctor ordered when one needs to achieve certain goals. According to GlobalFoundries, the No. 2 contract maker of chips, many customized process technologies are gaining importance …
Read More »UK retailers admit they weren’t ready for Black Friday
UK retailers have admitted that Black Friday 2014 was their biggest challenge this year. 32 per cent of stores surveyed following the sales day noted that handling the crowds and demand proved difficult. Some retailers felt that they were unable to cope logistically with the sheer amount of customers coming …
Read More »Google thinks surveillance reform will come next year
Following the NSA leaks, many people out there on the internet have suddenly become very conscious of their privacy and security. The sheer extent of unwarranted government surveillance going on behind the scenes was somewhat shocking. However, Google thinks that things may change for the better next year with surveillance …
Read More »Notch just bought Beverly Hills’ nicest mansion
Suddenly becoming a billionaire overnight must be quite bizarre, as what do you do with that kind of money? But there's more than a few people that that's happened to this year. Oddly enough, they've been people in the gaming industry, like Oculus VR's Palmer Luckey and the original creator of …
Read More »Apple still not protecting rights of Chinese labourers
Apple has been slammed for its poor treatment of Chinese workers in the past, with claims of slave like labour practices and legitimate abuse from management stretching back years. Today though it seems conditions aren't much better, with a report coming out from BBC's Panorama investigation that found workers falling asleep at …
Read More »George Martin slams theatre ‘cowardice’, offers to show Interview
Nobody could ever accuse George R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books (which the Game of Thrones show is based on) from shying away from harsh truths. Namely that some characters just aren't meant to live out the pages of his latest …
Read More »Sony Killzone resolution lawsuit will not be dismissed
A judge has rejected Sony's bid to get a class action lawsuit against the company dismissed. The lawsuit aims to refund those that bought PS4 launch title, Killzone Shadow Fall, after it was revealed that the game's multiplayer component did not run at 1080p resolution, despite all advertising claiming otherwise. …
Read More »Mobile networks to invest £5 billion on improving coverage
The UK's four largest networks, EE, O2, Vodafone and Three have all agreed to work together to improve the country's patchy coverage areas by 2017. These particular coverage spots can often receive a signal from one or two networks, while those tied to other companies will find themselves without signal. …
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