Last year Intel announced plans to accelerate its Atom roadmap and produce its low-power/low-cost products at the same nodes as its leading-edge chips for desktops and notebooks. Apparently, the widely-discussed issues with the 14nm general-purpose process technology seem to also affect Intel’s 14nm process for low-power system-on-chips. According to a …
Read More »Fujitsu and UMC to form chip production joint venture
Fujitsu Limited and United Microelectronics Corp. plan to form a joint venture that will operate Fujitsu’s semiconductor manufacturing complex in Mie prefecture in Japan. While initially Fujitsu will hold the control stake of the new company, it is going to gradually reduce it. The Japanese conglomerate has been winding down …
Read More »The Elder Scrolls Online has around 770,000 subscribers
There's a lot of negativity towards The Elder Scrolls Online floating around the web but the game must be doing something right as it still has around 770,000 active subscribers according to a report published by SuperData Research. Neither Bethesda or Zenimax have shared exact sales or subscriber figures but …
Read More »Seagate ships 8TB ‘customer development’ hard drives
Seagate Technology on Thursday said that it had shipped the first samples of hard disk drives (HDDs) with 8TB capacity to its customers. The company did not reveal any peculiarities regarding the product or the name of its clients. “We have also delivered 8TB customer development units to major customers …
Read More »Amazon launches unlimited eBook subscription service
If Amazon wasn't already considered in all out war with the traditional book sale industry, it is now. Extending its Kindle dominance over eBooks even further, Amazon has now launched a subscription service for the platform, offering some half million plus digital books for unlimited viewing, for just $9.99 a …
Read More »Pirate Bay traffic has doubled despite ISP blocks
Certain Internet providers around the world have been ordered to block The Pirate Bay in some countries and so far, media groups have claimed that these blocks are effective and sufficient enough to deter piracy. However, new statistics are suggesting otherwise as it turns out that TPB's traffic has doubled since …
Read More »Two more special edition PS4’s announced for Japan
Sony has announced two more special edition Playstation 4 consoles for Japan. In addition to the recently announced Frozen themed console, Japanese buyers will also be able to get a Destiny themed white PS4 or a black ‘The Last of Us' themed console. The white, Destiny themed console looks similar …
Read More »Microsoft shutting down Xbox Entertainment Studios
Microsoft's original programming plans have been cut short as it has been revealed that Xbox Entertainment Studios will be shutting down as part of the mass job cuts taking place at the company. The studio was in charge of the upcoming live action Halo projects and the Atari E.T landfill documentary. …
Read More »UK police set to trial Robocop style facial recognition
One of the biggest problems I had with the recent Robocop remake, was that while the technology was impressive, it was so much less so than the original from back in the day. Sure robotics that can keep a person's brain, face and spine alive without anything else is beyond what …
Read More »Yogscast game cancelled, Kickstarter backers given other rewards
The Kickstarter funded game Yogventures, based on characters from the popular Youtube channel, Yogscast, has been cancelled, with developer Winterkewl going under. Yogscast staff have apologised to backers and have announced that they are now working with Nerd Kingdom, the developers of TUG, to try and deliver comparable rewards. In …
Read More »Doom 4 to reboot franchise with old school mechanics
Doom 4 has been one of those games that almost seemed like it would never see the light of day. First announced as being in development way back in 2008, the team restarted their efforts in 2011, scrapping what came before. However now the game is much more finalised, as beyond …
Read More »Lenovo discontinues small-screen Windows tablets in North America
Several months after Microsoft Corp. made its Windows operating system free for devices with displays smaller than 9”, Lenovo Group decided to discontinue its Windows-based tablets with 8” screens in the U.S. because of the lack of interest from the end-users. The same actions can follow in other parts of …
Read More »AMD ‘Carrizo’ specifications, block-diagram get published
The first specifications as well as a block-diagram of AMD’s next-generation code-named “Carrizo” accelerated processing unit (APU) have been published by a web-site. Despite expectations, the “Carrizo” will not support high-bandwidth memory (HBM) technologies, at least, in its mainstream implementation. Nonetheless, the new chip will carry a fair amount of …
Read More »Microsoft to phase-out Nokia X Android-based smartphones
As part of its major restructuring plan announced on Thursday, Microsoft Corp. will phase out its Google Android-based smartphones and will offer more affordable Lumia devices in order to address customers in budget as well as developing markets. Additionally, Microsoft announced plans to focus on higher-end smartphones and fight against …
Read More »TSMC begins to ship 20nm wafers to customers, expects very rapid ramp
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said this week that it had begun to ship the first wafers processed using its 20nm fabrication technology to customers. The company began mass production of chips using 20nm manufacturing process in early January, the first commercial wafers were shipped to undisclosed customers in June. The …
Read More »Intel: We will integrate 3G/4G modems into all our platforms
Intel Corp. said this week that its future PC platforms will be equipped with its own 3G/4G modems so to enable wireless Internet connectivity everywhere and on every device. The move will clearly make notebooks and slates with integrated baseband capabilities more affordable eventually, whereas Intel’s chips will get more …
Read More »Google now offers bitcoin currency conversion rates
If you've ever been about to purchase something on an illicit market, but were wondering how much of a single bitcoin you'll need in order to cover your order, then often times that meant going to a site like Blockchain, or one of the big exchanges and checking their latest …
Read More »Microsoft set to cut 18,000 jobs by March 31st 2015
Microsoft has officially announced its plan to cut 18,000 jobs by the 31st of March next year. However, it's the company's recently acquired Nokia device and services division that will be hit the hardest, receiving around 12,500 of the overall job cuts. The mass job cuts were announced by Microsoft …
Read More »Dishonored 2 rumored to be revealed at Gamescom 2014
It looks like we might get our first look at the sequel to Dishonored at Gamescom next month if recent rumors are to be believed. Bethesda has hinted at turning the hit game in to a franchise but we haven't had any concrete information as of yet. The sequel is …
Read More »Apple to pay $400 million in ebook price-fix settlement
Apple has finally agreed to an out of court settlement with the 33 states accusing the company of hiking up ebook prices. US attorneys general revealed today that Apple has agreed to pay out as much as $400 million to readers. However, the final bill will likely be closer to $450 million …
Read More »US Xbox One sales doubled in June
Microsoft's decision to sell a cheaper, Kinecless Xbox One bundle is already paying off as US sales of the console actually doubled in June. The jump in sales could also be partially attributed to the holiday lineup of games announced at E3, including The Master Chief Collection and Sunset Overdrive. …
Read More »512GB Crucial SSD drops below £145
It seems like only yesterday that we were all happy with a 1TB spinning hard drive. Then the technologies around solid state drives dropped to the point where ‘working 100% on memory' became viable – at least for the rich and famous. So how much should you spend on the …
Read More »Google forms Project Zero, the anti-hack super team
Google has decided that enough is enough. Hackers, be they government sponsored security experts or bedroom nerds with a gift for social engineering, are the latest target of Google investment, as it has announced the creation of a new team of researchers called Project Zero, which is designed to find …
Read More »RIAA lobbying closes radio archive site
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is a lobby group that's most well known for going after torrent and streaming sites in order to prevent people from downloading music without paying for it first. While that doesn't give it the best image among many music fans, it does at …
Read More »Epic details more Fortnite enemies
Fortnite is the base building, zombie slaying, competitive, cooperative shooter that was showed off way back in 2012. While the idea of killing undead enemies and building a base has been done by many others at this point (Rust and Seven Days to Die, to name but a few) Epic …
Read More »Famitsu scans show off new Monster Hunter 4G monsters
Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, has a load of new information and images about the upcoming Monster Hunter 4G, the “ultimate,” version of Monster Hunter 4, much in the same way that the Wii U Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate, was an improved version of the Wii's edition. While we don't have …
Read More »Sony wants to attract Nintendo Wii owners to PlayStation 4
One of the things that Nintendo has consistently failed to do so far is to make owners of its previous-generation Wii game console to buy its new-generation Wii U system. Apparently, Sony Computer Entertainment thinks that it can persuade customers of its rival to get its PlayStation 4 instead of …
Read More »Japan Display and MediaTek enable mobile devices with 120Hz display
Japan Display Inc. (JDI) and MediaTek said this week they have developed technologies that will enable mobile devices with 120Hz displays. Such screens will offer advanced video playback and smooth gameplay, but they will also consume quite a lot of power. Still, some top-of-the-range smartphones or tablets may get 120Hz …
Read More »Intel: no change in 10nm schedule
Although Intel Corp. is behind the schedule with its 14nm manufacturing process, the company claims it has not made any changes to its 10nm schedule. Unfortunately, Intel has not officially revealed exact plans regarding production of chips using 10nm process technology. “We have done no changes or shift to our …
Read More »Intel sold highest amount of processors ever this past quarter
Thanks to strong sales of central processing units for personal computers, servers, tablets and other types of devices, Intel Corp. sold the record number of microprocessors in one quarter ever in the second quarter of its fiscal 2014. The company said that multiple factors affected demand for chips during the …
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