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Crytek, makers of the popular Crysis series, have announced that the long-awaited 'Homefront' sequel, dubbed 'Homefront: The Revolution,' will be released in 2015 for PC, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The Revolution will be powered by the company's powerful CryEngine and the gameplay will be focused around an open-world FPS with guerilla warfare.

The protagonists are "freedom fighters," civilians fighting back after years of living under occupation. Making the game hard is the fact that the enemy has all the technology and weapons, while you have to scavenge what you can from your surroundings.

Homefront's IP was owned by the now bankrupt THQ, which had to divest the assets in auction, leading to Crytek stepping in.

"There was quite a massive shift in how we were approaching Homefront," Crytek UK game designer Fasahat Salil added. "We started off with THQ coming to us to work on the next Homefront. That was exciting because we saw the potential that Homefront had and could offer - we wanted to take that premise forward. But we were still working on a very linear scale where it was a level by level shooter."

Ubisoft has revealed that Watch Dogs sold-through 4 million copies in just a week, setting a new industry record for the launch of a new franchise.

The publisher had previously said that Watch Dogs provided the best day-one results it had to date, but has now put some figures to it. Watch Dogs launched last week for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and Xbox One.

"With such strong sales momentum and positive feedback from gamers, Watch Dogs has positioned itself as the must-have game of the moment," said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing, Ubisoft

"We're really proud of this achievement, and are confident that the Watch Dogs brand has a promising future."

Watch Dogs follows the story of vigilante Aiden Pearce as he hacks his way around Chicago using the Central Operating System (ctOS). Pearce is seeking justice for the death of his niece following a failed robbery. He uses his smartphone to hack the city's infrastructure and progresses through missions.

The game has received generally positive reviews from critics, although it ran into some technical problems unsurprisingly linked to uPlay on PC.

In a year of delays for high-profile upcoming games, Batman: Arkham Knight is the latest that won't make it onto shelves in 2014.

Batman: Arkham Knight follows The Witcher 3, The Order: 1886, Tom Clancy's The Division, Mad Max and Quantum Break into a strong 2015 line-up for the industry, which also will include Halo 5: Guardians.

It is set to launch on PC and on both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (PS4) consoles, so early adopters will feel more dismay at this latest delay.

Arkham Knight picks up a year after the conclusion of Batman: Arkham City, released in 2011. Batman will have to face up to Scarecrow as he attempts to unite Batman's long list of enemies.

Gamers will be able to utilize the formidable Batmobile in Arkham Knight, which can be summoned to Batman's location around Gotham City, and can easily subdue enemies on foot and in vehicles. It will also be upgradeable as the story progresses.


Source: Joystiq

Pixar will provide its award-winning RenderMan software used in the production of 'Toy Story', 'Wall E', 'Monsters Inc' and more mega-hits free for non-commercial usage.

RenderMan is licensed to other studios for use in making 3D effects for movies. Pixar announced this week that it would cut the cost of its software for commercial use, and that it will provide it for free for non-commercial use too.

"Pixar is announcing that,in conjunction with the upcoming release, free non-commercial licenses of RenderMan will be made available without any functional limitations, watermarking, or time restrictions," the studio announced.

"Non-commercial RenderMan will be freely available for students, institutions, researchers, developers, and for personal use."

Part of Pixar's motivation in this move is increasing competition from rendering software, such as Arnold. This way, Pixar can more easily expand a community of RenderMan users.


Sources and Recommended Reading:
Pixar to give away 'Toy Story' 3D RenderMan software: www.bbc.com/news/
Pixar Animation Studios Announces Monumental Innovations In Film Rendering: renderman.pixar.com

According to ZDnet, Microsoft will not be including a true Start Menu (as rumored) with its upcoming Windows 8.1 Update 2.

The next update is expected to be released later this summer, likely in August.

Allegedly, the software giant will wait to add back a Start Menu until "Threshold," the code name for the next major Windows release (maybe called Windows 9 eventually) is released in April 2015.

It is unclear why Microsoft is delaying the feature (which was unveiled officially at BUILD), but of course it was always just a rumor to begin with that it would be part of the update. The rumored new Start Menu will be different from the familiar XP/Vista/7 menu as it will incorporate the "Metro" theme and screen concept.

After culling Bitcoin-related apps from its App Store only months ago, Apple is refreshing its policies toward the use of virtual currencies.

Apple had previously removed all apps capable of Bitcoin transfers and managing the virtual currency by February of this year, much to the dismay of those who use cryptocurrencies. By contrast, Google didn't seek to block Bitcoin apps from Google Play, giving Android a bit of a boost.

Now Apple is refreshing its policies for software developers, and will soon publish a list of virtual currencies that it considers to be approved.

This list will undoubtedly include Bitcoin, which has gained wider and wider acceptance. Recently, Dish announced that it could accept payments made in Bitcoin.

Apple's change of heart could see the return of apps like Blockchain, Gliph, CoinJar and Coinbase.


Sources and Recommended Reading:
Apple warms to apps using virtual currencies: www.bbc.com/news/
App Store Review Guidelines: developer.apple.com
Apple removes last Bitcoin wallet app from store: www.afterdawn.com (Feb 6, 2014)

Sony is set to stop shipping PSP consoles to retailers in Japan, following a move made by the company in North America earlier this year.

The PlayStation Portable will also stop shipping to retailers in Europe very soon. Sony hopes that the success of the PSP can continue through the PS Vita era, though it has yet to live up to its predecessor on the market.

In all, Sony sold more than 80 million PSPs worldwide, showing that it can compete with domestic rival Nintendo in the portable space. The PSP will live on in some emerging markets in Latin America and Asia, and Sony isn't halting production.

In Japan, PSP owners can trade in their aging system for a discount on a PS Vita.

It's difficult to believe that it's over ten years since the PSP was first unveiled in Japan, launching then in December of 2004.

Spotify, the world's largest streaming music service, is working on a new partnership with Vodafone that would bring the service to the African continent.

Vodacom, a unit of Vodafone, will offer its wireless subscribers different plans that include some free data to access Spotify and its catalog of tens of millions of tracks.

The carrier said they are certainly considering content-sharing deals but would not specify partners.
Vodacom has 31.5 million customers in South Africa and Spotify just revealed it has 30 million total users and 10 million paying subscribers who get unlimited music, no-ads, and usually mobile access.

Streaming music in Africa is right now dominated by Deezer, Spinlet and Rara, although each has just minor penetration in the market.

In general, the continent has below-average broadband speeds, and streaming and download services have had a hard time gaining traction.

Asus has used Computex to unveil their new crazy Transformer Book V (Roman numeral for five), a Windows laptop that is also a tablet and has a detachable Android phone.

The tablet itself has a 12.5-inch HD IPS display and is powered by Windows 8.1 and a latest-generation Intel processor. The included smartphone is the 5-inch ZenFone 5 with Android 4.4 and Intel's new 64-bit quad-core Atom processor with built-in LTE. Under the hood of the laptop is 4GB RAM, up to 128GB internal SSD next to a 1TB hard drive.

When you connect the phone to the dock, the Android interface is supersized to fit the display, or you can Android within Windows 8. Altogether, there are five modes: Windows laptop, Windows tablet, Android phone, Android tablet, and Android laptop.

There was no word yet on pricing.

The UK's National Crime Agency has said that there is a two week window of opportunity to clean as many Gameover ZeuS infections as possible, before cybercriminals may regain control of the botnet.

As we reported yesterday, a U.S./FBI-led international effort significantly disrupted the operation of the Gameover ZeuS botnet, which uses peer-to-peer communications and encryption to send commands from administrators around the network, and to send sensitive financial information from victims browsing activity back to the bot herders.

This malicious network may have already cost consumers and businesses over $100 million, and for those victims that have not used financial services while infected, the Crptolocker ransomware may have been installed in order to extort money by encrypting personal files until a fee is paid.

You can read about how the Feds and their international equivalents worked with private companies to disrupt the botnet here.

While it was easily overlooked in the excessively long WWDC keynote today, Apple announced that with iOS 8 you will be able to save minutes with Wi-Fi calling, a feature long available for Android devices.

The service is great, as long as your carrier supports it and today T-Mobile was quick to be the first U.S. carrier to support Wi-Fi calling.

T-Mobile says over 5 million of their subscribers already use Wi-Fi calling with their smartphones. T-Mobile launched support for Wi-Fi calling in 2007, even before the launch of Android.

Reads the company's press release: "With the news coming out of Apple's keynote today that Wi-Fi Calling will be enabled with iOS 8 – I'm excited to welcome our iPhone customers to the convenience and ease of T-Mobile Wi-Fi Calling as well.

Since we launched Wi-Fi Calling over seven years ago, our engineers have continued to deliver quality and user experience enhancements. As a result, our service is one of the most advanced natively-integrated Wi-Fi Calling products in the U.S. We have the deep technical knowledge and the close partnerships with device manufacturers to deliver the Wi-Fi call quality wireless consumers have come to expect from the Un-carrier."

Earlier today during their WWDC keynote, Apple unveiled iCloud Drive, a cloud storage file system for storing all of your documents and accessing it no matter where you are.

The service will rival Dropbox and other similar solutions like Google's own Drive.

Each application you use with iCloud Drive will have its own folder within the interface, and those can be found easily through Finder. Your files can be synced across iOS, OS X and also Windows. If your app is not yet iCloud enabled, you can still manually drop files and folders into the Drive to keep them synced.

There is not yet an iOS app for iCloud Drive, but there is a file browser, which is a good start. To open files, you will need to open an app that uses iCloud Drive for storage.

Apple has priced 20GB of storage at $0.99 per month, while $3.99 per month gets you 200GB. If you have an iCloud account, you get 5GB for free, and that is likely enough for most. There will be tiers bigger than 200GB, but prices have yet to be determined.

The U.S. has charged a Russian man in connection with the Gameover Zeus botnet, and Cryptolocker ransomware that has cost businesses and consumers millions of dollars.

As we reported, the FBI coordinated with international counterparts in several countries and with private companies to take measures aimed at stifling the operations of the Gameover Zeus botnet and Cryptolocker ransomware.

In addition to those technical actions, the Department of Justice also unsealed criminal charges in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Omaha, Nebraska, against an administrator of the botnet. The administrator is identified as Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, 30, of Anapa, Russian Federation.

(HOW-TO: Here are instructions on how to detect and remove Gameover ZeuS from PCs)

He has been charged with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, band fraud and money laundering in Pittsburgh. Additionally, he was also charged by criminal complaint in Omaha with conspiracy to commit bank fraud related to his alleged involvement in the operation of a prior variant of Zeus malware known as "Jabber Zeus."

A US-led effort has disrupted the operation of the notorious Gameover Zeus botnet and the Cryptolocker ransomware that has cost businesses and consumers millions.

Gameover Zeus was the latest variant of Trojan.Zbot, designed to steal banking information and other credentials from victims. Instead of using centralized command-and-control servers to control the botnet, Gameover Zues uses a more sophisticated decentralized peer-to-peer system and strong encryption to spread commands around the botnet, and to direct stolen financial information.

(NOTE: The U.S. has also charged as is seeking a Russian man in connection with Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker)

(HOW-TO: Here are instructions on how to detect and remove Gameover ZeuS from PCs)

The principal purpose of the botnet is to capture banking credentials from infected computers. Those credentials are then used to initiate or re-direct wire transfers to accounts overseas that are controlled by cyber criminals.

Apple unveiled iOS 8 at WWDC today, the latest OS that will drive its iPhone and iPad devices.

iOS brings plenty of new features across its apps, as well as new tools for developers to create new apps for the OS. Among its notable new features are iCloud Photo Library to spread/use your photos and videos more seamlessly across your devices, and the anticipated new Health app that gathers your health and fitness data to one place.

The new Messages app is also more powerful, making it possible to very easily send/receive audio, video and picture messages. Additionally, the new QuickType Keyboard could speed up your messaging significantly. It's predictive typing ability can learn aspects of your personality which it stores encrypted on the device, and that enables you to quickly respond to questions and even construct entire sentences with a few taps.

By understanding the context of your messages, it enables you to give quick answers to queries, for example, if you are asked whether you want to go to dinner or a movie tonight, it will identify "dinner" and "movie" and make it possible to respond with a tap.

Group messaging also became easier to control, making it more simple to add and remove contacts, leave a conversation and use the option to not be disturbed.