Sony has just sold off the 9.5 million share stake it had in Publisher, Square Enix for $47 million despite its stock in the company being worth upwards of $150 million. The 9,520,000 shares were passed on to a company known as SMBC Nikko Securities, which specialises in corporate finance. Square Enix …
Read More »Dotcom to regain assets, firing on all cylinders
Kim Dotcom is likely to regain all of his frozen assets originally confiscated as part of the raid on his mansion in 2012 by the New Zealand authorities. This includes over $10 million in liquid funds, $6 million worth of luxury cars and personal items relating to Dotcom and his …
Read More »Google is putting cameras in contact lenses
Google showcased a new type of contact lens earlier this year that could potentially help diabetics by constantly monitoring their blood glucose levels. Already though the search giant has another prototype lens, this time with a camera in it. While it's not clear at what stage of development the technology …
Read More »Google Glass will be on sale today for 24 hours
Today is the day that Google opens up its Glass explorers program to the public for the first time, if you live in the US, then you will be able to buy a Google Glass today and today only. Unfortunately though, the exclusivity comes at a cost, you will have …
Read More »New generator could power wearable tech through body heat
Creating a smart watch or arm band with a battery that can last the entire day in such a small form factor is difficult but what if these devices never had to charge and could live off of your body heat? This could become a reality as researchers at KAIST …
Read More »UK government wants permanent piracy watchdog
Last year the British government created a new organisation designed with tackling online piracy, called the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) and since then it's gone after file lockers and torrent sites, in an attempt to make it much harder to view copyright protected content without permission. While initially …
Read More »Watch Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party Picnic speech here
Kim Dotcom recently hosted the first meeting of Internet Party members in his own front garden, calling it the Internet Party Picnic. It ended up drawing in over 700 of the parties first members, where pictures were taken with the MegaUpload founder and with his giraffe sculpture and of course …
Read More »Kim Dotcom hosts Internet Party picnic in his front garden
Kim Dotcom has had a real image upheaval in the past few years. Since his arrest in in 2012 on copyright infringement and money laundering charges and the shutdown of Megaupload, he's gone from internet playboy and jealousy-inducing picture taker, to one of the faces of the fight for internet …
Read More »Next Attenborough nature documentary will work with Oculus Rift
One of the problems the Oculus Rift has had over the past year or so, is that it's been part of the next, great, tech chicken and egg scenario. While there have been some great independent developers making content for it, there hasn't been much in the way of big …
Read More »Overclockers take centre stage at The Gadget Show Live
Without doubt, the Gadget Show Live is the largest technology show in the UK. In fact, driven by a TV audience of more than 1 million tech lovers, The Gadget Show Live finds it easy to put 30,000 folks in the same place at the same time. KitGuru takes a …
Read More »Kickstarter launched for pocket sized robot printer
While 3D printers are getting smaller and cheaper, traditional printers are going mobile, but more expensive. A group of students from the Jerusalem College of Technology have created a pocket sized printer that rolls around on top of your paper like a robot vacuum, eliminating the need for huge, bulky printers. The …
Read More »Kim Dotcom debates MPAA on Megaupload live on air
Kim Dotcom and the MPAA are two legally represented entities that have been circling each other, locking horns and disengaging for years now, taking swings in the court and the papers but in all but a few cases, they've had lawyers buffering their commentary. However following on from the lobby …
Read More »New car tech to let you see the ground under your engine
Driving over rough terrain, or simply not bumping the curb can be hard sometimes, especially if your car is quite low slung or has a long, extended bonnet, simply because you can't see what you're doing at the front end. However Land Rover has been showing off a new concept …
Read More »Anti-games politician pleads not guilty to gun trafficking charges
Around two weeks ago we reported on Leeland Yee, an anti violent video games politician who was arrested on gun trafficking and corruption charges. Yee campaigned against games like Grand Theft Auto and even tried to get stricter gun control rules introduced in the US. So what's the point of …
Read More »Study claims Youtube music videos hurt album sales
Piracy is often cited as the main detractor for album sales around the world, but a new study from the University of Colorado and Fairfield University has found evidence to suggest that even legitimate Youtube videos could cause a drop in album sales. The study is called Online Music, Sales …
Read More »AMD AM1 launch – Kabini brings APU to the masses
One of the more surprising things about the way the world has changed since the advent of the network and tablet PC revolutions, is the way that desktops are holding their own. Sure, it's more of a gentle decline that the rampant growth we experienced in the past, but it …
Read More »HP to acknowledge corruption in Poland
Hewlett Packard, still one of the biggest names in the PC hardware game despite the shrinking market, is set to admit to mass corruption in its Polish arm, after the local government completed an industry wide investigation into bribes. According to the accusations (via Reuters), HP staff stand accused of …
Read More »Game of Thrones Season 4 breaks piracy records
Game of Thrones is a wildly popular show and as with any such programme, it attracts impressive numbers of pirated downloads. However, the latest season has broken all previous records, with over a million illegitimate downloads in the half a day after release and over 300,000 people sharing the episode …
Read More »EU Justice court rules metadata storage invalid
While Obama might be happy to keep telling people that the NSA isn't interested in reading your texts, the kind of legislation that makes it possible for countries like the US and the UK to spy on citizens and store huge amounts of metadata on who's calling who and when, …
Read More »New battery tech can fully charge a smartphone in 30 seconds
Battery technology hasn't scaled well with smartphones, leaving consumers wishing for bigger and better batteries and while energy efficiency has improved a bit, many users find their phones dying before the day is done. This is where Israeli startup StoreDot comes in, the small company has created a Bio-Organic battery …
Read More »$299 3D printer hits kickstarter goal in 11 minutes
The guys over at M3D might be on to something as it reached its $299 3D printer kickstarter goal in just 11 minutes and since then, the project has gone on to raise almost $1 million. The latest Kickstarter success aims to bring you the first truly consumer 3D printer …
Read More »MPAA, studios file suit against Megaupload to cover bases
Movie studios and lobby groups have been gunning for Kim Dotcom for some time. In conjunction with the New Zealand authorities and FBI, they spied on him before and after his arrest in January 2012 and since have been pushing to have the man extradited to the US. However with …
Read More »Gaming can thicken parts of the brain
The debate about whether gaming has much of an impact on the brains of the world and particularly the young, has been racing since time began, or at least over the past few decades. However one study is now purporting to have evidence that shows certain parts of the brain …
Read More »Sony phony DMCA takedown blocks freely available movie
DMCA takedown requests, especially the one for content that doesn't belong to the complainee, have repeatedly been shown to be ridiculous since their implementation. Google has had to deal with tens of millions of the things and even some automated takedown tools demanding their own takedown requests be taken down, …
Read More »Hexacopter drone falls during race, injures athlete
A hexacopter drone's operation during a triathlon in Australia, is being investigated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) after it fell from the sky whilst filming the race. While the report initially suggested that the drone struck one of the racers and injured her, other evidence now suggests she …
Read More »Mozilla CEO resigns over anti-gay publicity
The CEO of the Mozilla Foundation, Brendan Eich, has resigned, following on from OKCupid's campaign to have its users stop using the Firefox browser because of a donation he made in support of an anti-gay marriage piece of legislation in California in 2008. Mozilla released a statement about the move, …
Read More »Anti-spy groups want software firms held accountable for snooping
Companies that sell invasive spying software to oppressive regimes around the world, should be held accountable. That's according to the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) which has just been launched in Brussels, Belgium. Made up of representatives from a variety of other rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights …
Read More »Microsoft Studios’ staff are being laid off
Following on from news that Xbox has a new boss, Phil Spencer, with plans to merge multiple departments together, including Microsoft Studios, the game development arm of the software giant is being hit by layoffs, with several staffers posting confirmation on Twitter; some of them, with links to their new …
Read More »Amazon’s Fire TV isn’t guaranteed a UK release
Amazon's recently revealed set top box, the Fire TV, might not make it outside of the United States as the company currently has no plans to release in other countries. Selling a streaming device is never easy as licensing agreements need to be made with copyright holders in order to …
Read More »NSA admits to loophole spying on Americans
When the NSA spying revelations were first revealed, it was clear American metadata was being used when it came to tracking down terrorists – though it wasn't particularly useful – but Obama and others made bold statements that suggested “nobody [at the NSA] is listening to [American] telepohone calls.” However now …
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