Latest news

According to a new report, Apple is developing its own GPU, and it's been in the works for at least three years.

Says the report: "Apple is making its GPU to cut the cord from Imagination Technologies a company that makes its IP (Intellectual Property) for the GPU."

If accurate, Apple would soon be able to offer their phones and tablets with in-house SoCs that feature A-series CPUs and their own GPUs, likely improving their already hefty margins.

According to Valve, 77,000 Steam accounts are hijacked every month, and the company is trying to fight back.

The company says when they launched Steam Trading, the accounts began getting stolen at 20 times the rate they previously were, and while Valve protected the victims there were plenty of pitfalls for the full trading economy, especially as it diluted the value of rare items.

"What used to be a handful of hackers is now a highly effective, organized network, in the business of stealing and selling items. It would be easier for them to go after the users who don't understand how to stay secure online, but the prevalence of items make it worthwhile to target everyone. We see around 77,000 accounts hijacked and pillaged each month. These are not new or naïve users; these are professional CS:GO players, reddit contributors, item traders, etc. Users can be targeted randomly as part of a larger group or even individually. Hackers can wait months for a payoff, all the while relentlessly attempting to gain access. It's a losing battle to protect your items against someone who steals them for a living," says Valve in an open letter to users.

To counteract the hackers, Valve says it has "worked to improve account security features, closed loopholes, improved how and when we message users that their account is at risk, added self-locking, and created the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator (two-factor authentication)," and it is imploring users to sign up for the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator as soon as possible to protect their accounts.

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have the first X-Men: Apocalypse trailer six months before its theatrical release.

Directed by Bryan Singer, the film follows the story of Apocalypse, the first mutant ever and the most powerful, living for tens of thousands of years.

Says Fox: "Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction."

X-Men fan or not, the trailer looks great. Check it here:

Like Kleenex is to tissues, or App Store is to, well, app stores, GoPro is synonymous with action cameras. But the company has revealed its next big thing, a flying camera called Karma.

Karma is of course an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a drone. This drone will be featuring GoPro's industry leading action camera technology that has already of course been attached to numerous drones around the world.

Before developing the Karma, GoPro was associated with drone manufacturer DJI. GoPro and DJI were cooperating closely even to the point that a joint quadrocopter was in the plans. However, companies drifted apart after disagreements and DJI has since started developing their own cameras.

The flying GoPro will launch next year but other details are still scarce. In addition to the name, we do know that Karma will be a quadrocopter and we have a grasp of what type of footage it can film – given that the video was actually filmed on one.

Amazon announced today that it has expanded the one-hour delivery provided by Prime Now to another 4,000 items. Amazon says the expansion includes electronics, toys, wrapping paper and even baking supplies.

Amazon's Prime Now started from Manhattan a year ago and has grown steadily. Prime Now operates in over 20 metropolitan areas in 16 states and is now starting to deliver beer, wine, spirits and other items from Eataly in Manhattan.

The company says it is the "procrastinator's dream" and promises that it'll deliver the tens of thousands of items this holiday until midnight on December 24th. Prime Now one-hour delivery is $7.99 and two-hour delivery is free

Prime Now is available in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orange County, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Seattle and Richmond.

Struggling gamemaker Rovio has just lost another major executive as CEO Pekka Rantala has stepped down.

Rantala had taken over the position from co-founder Mikael Hed just 16 months ago and will now be replaced by Kati Levoranta, the company's chief legal officer.

In stepping down, Rantala said "I feel now the time is right for me to step aside and move on to new challenges."

During his tenure, the company laid off over 30 percent of their workforce and has struggled to remain profitable, as new games have not gained traction like the original Angry Birds did.

Moving forward, a lot of faith is being placed in the Angry Birds movie set for release in 2016, and in cutting costs.
"We are now positioned to make the most of the release of The Angry Birds Movie in May," says new CEO Levoranta, "and some exciting developments in the games and consumer products portfolios throughout 2016."

A few days ago, the never-ending search for the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto took another strange turn, when two publications claimed to have unmasked the founder as Australian finance geek Craig Wright.

Today, an email was sent out from satoshi@vistamail.com, an email that once (or is still currently) used by the true founder of the currency with the email subject "Not this again" and the brief message that says "I am not Craig Wright. We are all Satoshi."

Of course, email addresses can be spoofed, so there is the possibility that the mystery will remain a mystery for longer. Additionally, the email was missing his cryptographic signature.

Regardless, the evidence is compelling for Craig Wright being the real founder until there is a formal denial.

Sony has given fans what they want, a dedicated PlayStation Messages app for iOS and Android allowing for better communication for gamers.

"Use PlayStation Messages to instantly see who's online and message your gamer friends and favorite groups from your mobile device. Always stay connected with your gamer friends to talk about the games you love to play even while you're away from your PS4 system," says Sony.

A breakdown of the features:

- Check your Friends List to instantly see who's online and what they're playing.

- Send text or voice messages as well as photos and stickers to your friends or a group with up to 100 players.

- Quickly access your favorite message groups from your favorites list.

HTC has delayed their Vive VR system until April 2016, despite having promised fans that early adopters could try it out by the end of 2015.

The system combines a headset with two tracking stations and two controllers, but other details are hard to come by.

At least, that lack of details should be a thing of the past soon when HTC has a Vive-related media conference in China on December 18th, and the company will be showing off the device again at CES next month.

Additionally, 7000 more units will be made available for devs at the beginning of next year. Unfortunately for HTC, Oculus' first consumer Rift has a scheduled launch in the Q1, as well.

The RIAA has settled its lawsuit with music streaming service Aurous for $3 million. The service had been sued just 72 hours after launching in October.

Aurous had acted like a "Popcorn Time" for music, allowing users to search and find music from third party services, for free.

In their lawsuit, the major labels had alleged copyright infringement (and it seems they were vindicated) and demanded tens of millions in damages. Founder and developer Andrew Sampson initially seemed like he wanted to fight the charges but both sides went quiet just a few days after the suit. Sampson and co-founder Danielle Astvatsaturova now have permanent injunctions from committing any infringing actions ever again.

Although the full settlement was for $3 million, there was a separate agreement signed outside of court, likely with a significantly lower monetary figure. Sampson has long said he did not make a dime from the site.

For their part, the RIAA was pleased with the settlement and how quickly it came to fruition. "Aurous appropriately agreed to shut down. It was the right thing to do. We hope this sends a strong signal that unlicensed services cannot expect to build unlawful businesses on the backs of music creators," Sherman added.

Mozilla has launched their very own ad-blocker for iOS devices, following in the footsteps of many others using iOS 9's new content-blocking API.

The new 'Focus' app takes its blacklist from the browser plugin Disconnect.me, which currently has a list of 5000 trackers including those associated with ad networks.

Focus allows you to control what ads you see, and what kind of tracking can be done on your browsing even on social networks.

CONTENT BLOCKING + TRACKING PROTECTION
- Offers next-level privacy by blocking many common Web trackers in Safari.
- Lets you control the types of page content allowed on your browser.

BROWSE FASTER
- With content blocking and tracking protection on, Web pages may require less data and load faster.

FROM MOZILLA -- A BRAND YOU TRUST
- Mozilla strives to improve the Web for all and has been voted one of the Most Trusted Internet Companies for Privacy.*

COMMITTED TO TRANSPARENCY
- Mozilla gives users transparency online so you can take control of your personal information and choose what content you want to block. We work to provide feedback to content providers and build a healthy, open Web.

Just a few weeks after the release of the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X, Google has discontinued sales of last year's Nexus 6.

Other retailers are still offering the device, at a discounted price normally starting at $350, but it remains to be seen if Google still has inventory or if what is out there is all that's left.

Despite great reviews when it launched last year, Google has stepped away from the gigantic 6-inch screen and its newest flagship has a 5.7-inch screen and upgraded specs making the Nexus 6 irrelevant.

Earlier this week, Sony confirmed the first PlayStation 2 games that will be available via backwards compatibility on the PlayStation 4.

Says Sony: "Hello everyone. As we continue our celebration of the PlayStation 20th anniversary, we want to take a look back at the heritage that helped propel us to the brand that we are today. PlayStation 2 holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers who have fond memories of playing some of the biggest franchises in gaming."

The games are available via the PlayStation Store in North America and Europe.

List:

Dark Cloud -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto III -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -- $14.99
Rogue Galaxy -- $14.99
The Mark of Kri -- $14.99
Twisted Metal: Black -- $9.99
War of the Monsters -- $9.99

Each game also has trophy support, have been upscaled to 1080p, and include Remote Play, Live Broadcast, Share Play, Activity Feeds, and Second Screen support.

As a reminder to our readers, OnePlus' new OnePlus 2 flagship device is available now (and forever) without an invite.

Additionally, the mid-range OnePlus X is available without need for an invite from today until December 7th and a few accessories are up to 90 percent off.

The invitation system has been criticized in the past, but it has helped OnePlus to keep supply and demand in check and it has also helped to keep some mystery around OnePlus devices.

"The invite system has been crucial to letting us scale our operations and has given our fans a unique way to share OnePlus with the people in their lives. But we are always trying to enhance the OnePlus experience for you and taking risks to push ourselves and show real improvements. That's why we're making the OnePlus 2 invite-free...forever!

That's right; you'll never again need an invite to purchase the OnePlus 2. We're proud to be able to make the OnePlus 2 invite-free so soon and hope this will make getting your very own OnePlus 2 a cheerfully easy experience," added Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus.

A month and a half ago Reuters rumored that Sony's booming camera business, one of the few divisions making profit in the company, would be acquiring more camera sensor know-how.

Now the rumor has been confirmed as the Sony and Toshiba have come to an agreement over Toshiba's camera sensor business. Sony will pay Toshiba 19 billion yen or $154 million for its sensor business. This includes approximately 1100 employees and the manufacturing facility in Oita, Japan.

Sony's Exmor camera sensors have been one of the company's few flagships that have kept the boat afloat during rather tough couple of years. This will certainly solidify Sony's competence more and give muscle against rivals for the ever-important deals like that of the iPhone camera sensors.

Toshiba and Sony are said to finalize the deal before April next year.