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The latest 'Titanfall' trailer reveals the Atlas class workhorse titan

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 5:09

The latest 'Titanfall' trailer reveals the Atlas class workhorse titan Another trailer for the extremely highly-anticipated 'Titanfall' game has revealed the Atlas class titan.

Earlier in the month, trailers revealed the powerful "Ogre" and "Stryder" titans.

The Atlas, by contrast, is the workhorse: "As a multi-role Titan, the Atlas excels where all other models fall short. The Atlas represents the state-of-the-art in weapons platforms and provides good protection and increased mobility over the Ogre chassis.

Whether the mission demands reconnaissance, rapid assault, fire support, tactical support, or a combination of all these, Atlas frontline elements are dependable, powerful and, importantly, get results."


Titanfall will hit the Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on March 11th with the potential for a beta starting next month.




AfterDawn: News

Wuaki.tv hits 1 million subscribers after surge in the UK

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 4:54

Wuaki.tv hits 1 million subscribers after surge in the UK Rakuten's Wuaki.tv on-demand movie and TV streaming service has reached one million subscribers, thanks to a surge in UK users since its launch there in September.

The company says there are now 125,000 UK-based subscribers. The service is only available in Spain, Andorra and the UK.

What makes the service different from major rivals like Netflix, is that Wuaki offers unlimited streaming from a limited catalog and also the option to buy or rent digital titles a la carte. In other words, the company is a mix of Netflix and iTunes.

Rakuten has been adding apps over the past few months, and is now supported on iOS, Android and the Xbox 360 in addition to normal desktop use.




AfterDawn: News

Following outage, Nintendo eShop is back up and running

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 4:33

Following outage, Nintendo eShop is back up and running Following days of outages triggered by a Christmas traffic surge, Nintendo's eShop is back online for all systems.

Nintendo confirmed the platform was back a few hours ago after resolving all the necessary issues. At the time, the gaming company had said the outage was caused by a "one-time surge in demand" caused by the holidays. In addition, there was a surge in new Nintendo Network accounts from new console owners and 3DS accounts were also converted to the Nintendo Network at the same time.

The company has been working on unifying all of its online platforms to the Nintendo Network ID for the last few weeks, instead of having console or handheld owners being tied to their individual devices.

Still down, however, are the Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transported apps, which were set to launch on Friday. Pokémon Bank is a paid application and service for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y that allows gamers to deposit, store, and manage their Pokémon on the Internet. Transporter allows for transferring of games to older Pokemon Black and White games.




AfterDawn: News

French organization wants to tax media giants like Facebook, YouTube

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 4:17

French organization wants to tax media giants like Facebook, YouTube French independent broadcasting authority, the Superior Council of Audiovisual, says it wants to tax all media companies so they can contribute to financing French culture.

Because sites like Facecbook, YouTube and DailyMotion "fall into the same category as video-on-demand services," they should be subject to French cultural protection laws that include taking a portion of revenue from such companies to subsidize productions.

"These platforms have been developing partnerships with audiovisual publishers and content providers for years, with which they share revenues from advertising," the report noted.

The report also claims that the entire video-on-demand market has seen revenue grow to 252 million euro in 2012 from 97 million euro in 2009.

For the time being, the sites seem to be safe as the law can only be applied to websites based in France, which Facebook and YouTube are certainly not. The organization hopes to change the legislation soon to demand all video-on-demand services be included.




AfterDawn: News

Chromebooks take top spots on Amazon's top-selling notebooks list

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 3:58

Chromebooks take top spots on Amazon's top-selling notebooks list For the holiday season, Amazon says that Chromebooks have easily topped their best-selling notebooks list.

The Acer C720 topped the list, followed by Samsung's Chromebook. In seventh place was a higher internal storage model of the Acer Chromebook.

Research firm NPD Group went even further, saying Cromebooks accounted for an astonishing 21 percent of all US commercial notebook sales in 2013. "Commercial" sales are defined as notebooks sold to businesses, schools, government and other organizations. Perhaps more notably, Chromebooks accounted for 10 percent of all computers and tablets sales, says the Group.

In 2012, Chromebooks sales were nearly non-existent, at two-tenths of a percent of total sales.

"Tepid Windows PC sales allowed brands with a focus on alternative form factors or operating systems, like Apple and Samsung, to capture significant share of a market traditionally dominated by Windows devices," says the NPD Group. After stumbling hard with Windows 8, Microsoft was forced to begin developing their next update, Windows 8.1, almost immediately after the original's release.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Apple continues in its attempt to ban some of Samsung's products in the U.S.

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 3:43

Apple continues in its attempt to ban some of Samsung's products in the U.S. Apple has filed a new motion to renew its ongoing efforts to stop sales of Samsung products in the U.S.

Samsung was found to have infringed on three key utility patents and in other cases owes Apple nearly $1 billion.

In July 2012, a jury ruled against Samsung but the request for an injunction on Samsung products was thrown out. Apple recently appealed, successfully, that district court ruling.

The patents in question related to the tap-to-zoom and pinch-to-zoom UI functions seen on all smartphones now, but also related to the design of the smartphones.

Samsung could have continued to stall the process, but instead will let it go to trial again as the smartphones in question from the ruling are much older devices with little commercial value to the company.

Apple and Samsung have another patent case scheduled to begin in March of next year.




AfterDawn: News

Report: A BBC server was taken over by hackers on Christmas Day

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 3:10

Report: A BBC server was taken over by hackers on Christmas Day According to Reuters, a hacker secretly took over a BBC server and then tried to sell access to the system on Christmas Day.

It is unclear if any buyers purchased access, but BBC's security team believes they have re-secured the site.

BBC would only say that "we do not comment on security issues."

The server managed a small, obscure password-protected website, so it is also unclear whether any data was stolen in the attack. The site in question was ftp.bbc.co.uk.

Hold Security LLC, a cybersecurity firm that secretly monitors forums for stolen information, first revealed the attack. The firm said that while observing a Russian hacker known as "HASH" or "Rev0lver," they saw attempts to sell access to the server.




AfterDawn: News

Sony will not sell lithium-ion battery division

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Dec 2013 2:47

Sony will not sell lithium-ion battery division Sony has announced today that it will not sell its lithium-ion battery division, despite shopping it for some time.

The company has decided it can make the division profitable again with ever-growing demand for the batteries and a weakening yen.

Sony has been planning to sell the unit since 2011 as competition from South Korean rivals, which can manufacture cheaper, has grown fierce.

Earlier this year, it appeared Sony was going to sell the unit to a joint venture of Nissan Motor and NEC Corp, but the negotiations eventually stalled.

Sony, and its new CEO Kazuo Hirai, have been trying to turnaround the company after years of deepening losses. Hirai has been re-focusing the company on gaming, mobile devices and cameras and looking to sell off units that are not "core." The company recently sold the Gracenote music-matching software division to Tribune for $170 million.




AfterDawn: News

Nokia removes HERE Maps app from iOS App Store due to incompatibility with iOS 7

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 11:01

Nokia removes HERE Maps app from iOS App Store due to incompatibility with iOS 7 Nokia has pulled their HERE Maps application from the iOS App Store citing compatibility issues with iOS 7.

The company released the app last November for iOS 6, a couple of months after Apple released its own mapping solution that has improved significantly since its unveiling.

While Nokia had initially come out of the gate swinging with its own offerings for iOS and Android, the HERE Maps app for iOS has been left for dead, with no updates in the last ten months. iOS has seen significant updates in the last ten months, and Nokia has not even updated the bugs in the original app.

Nokia says that the "app was simply not optimized for iOS 7 so we decided to remove it," making sure not to blame Apple in the process.

There will likely not be too many upset users, as Google Maps and Apple Maps are much more robust (and constantly updated) applications.




AfterDawn: News

Don't forget to download free, top singles and albums from 2013 through the Google Play Store

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 10:01

Don't forget to download free, top singles and albums from 2013 through the Google Play Store Google has made some notable tracks and albums free through the Google Play Store for its end-of-year Play Picks 2013 promotion.

Kanye West's "Yeezus" and Chvrches' "The Bones of What You Believe" are completely free and 20 tracks including popular hits from MIA, Drake, Arcade Fire and Lana Del Rey are also free.

You can download the tracks using your Google Wallet account, or you can provide a credit card number (even though it won't be charged).

You can check the freebies here: Play Picks 2013




AfterDawn: News

Rdio shuts down Vdio service after it doesn't meet internal expectations

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 9:45

Rdio shuts down Vdio service after it doesn't meet internal expectations Online music streaming service Rdio has shut down its movie/TV on-demand service Vdio due to a lacking customer experience.

Says the company: "We have decided to discontinue the Vdio beta service. Despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for, and so Vdio is now closed."

Any purchase has been refunded and will become unavailable for further streaming. As of yesterday, the company stopped accepting new transactions and has been offering Amazon gift cards as refunds for purchases or unused rentals.

Vdio, which is available in the US, UK and Canada, was similar to existing on-demand video services like Google, iTunes and Amazon.

It appears Rdio was never able to differentiate the store from its larger rivals.




AfterDawn: News

Watch out Microsoft, PC makers are planning a rebellion against Windows with new 'PC Plus' machines

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 9:18

Watch out Microsoft, PC makers are planning a rebellion against Windows with new 'PC Plus' machines According to Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, multiple PC makers will stage a "rebellion" against Windows at the upcoming CES event, following another year of falling sales of traditional laptops and desktops.

Dubbed "PC Plus," the new devices will run both Windows and Android simultaneously. "A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well," Bajarin wrote. "They are doing this through software emulation. I'm not sure what kind of performance you can expect, but this is their way to try and bring more touch-based apps to the Windows ecosystem."

The machines will be able to switch from Windows to Android and back, instantly, most likely with an Android emulator running within its own window allowing for full access to Android apps and games while on your laptop/desktop.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

HTC executive charged with leaking company secrets

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 8:44

HTC executive charged with leaking company secrets Yet another former HTC executive has been charged with leaking company secrets. Another five employees were charged with taking kickbacks and falsifying expenses.

The former vice president of design for HTC, Thomas Chien, has been charged with leaking a smartphone interface design that had not been launched yet, and Chien is also accused of preparing to form a company with co-conspirators using the leaked info.

In addition, the six employees were charged with taking 33.57 million New Taiwan dollars (US$1.12 million) in kickbacks and other falsified records from suppliers. Three individuals from the unidentified supplier were also charged.

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.




AfterDawn: News

Nvidia Tegra Note 7 gets serious updates

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 7:48

Nvidia Tegra Note 7 gets serious updates Although demand has been relatively low since launch, Nvidia has rolled out some notable updates for its Tegra Note 7.

The tablet is now up to Android 4.3 as its base operating system, and the company has added AOHDR to the camera along with new updates for the DirectStylus pen technology.

You can expect the OTA update in the next few days if you do own the tablet and it seems that the most notable update is the addition of always-on high dynamic range photos. While the option is seen on nearly all tablets and smartphones now, the Tegra Note has real-time instant processing, removing the lag normally seen by melding three photos (high, low, regular exposure shots).

Left-handed tablet users have seen the DirectStylus pen technology updated, allowing them to use their strong hand and rest their palms on the display without interference. Overall, the software is also now more responsive, has a new notification bar control and more help support.

Finally, Nvidia added an easier way to transfer your internal storage files to the microSD card.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Google received 235 million DMCA takedown requests and approved 91 percent

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Dec 2013 6:52

Google received 235 million DMCA takedown requests and approved 91 percent Copyright holders stepped up their efforts to get infringing links taken down, sending 235 million DMCA takedown requests to Google so far in 2013.

Google allowed 91 percent of the search engine takedown requests, meaning only 21 million URLs were left untouched. Most of these were illegitimate or just duplicates of previous requests, says TorrentFreak.

The number of requests has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2011, Google received just 10 million notices, followed by 50 million in 2012. At the current rate, Google might be hit with 1 billion notices next year.

Looking further into the numbers, the music industry (led by the BPI and RIAA) sent an astonishing 72.5 million notices, followed by Twentieth Century Fox, Froytal Services (porn industry) and Microsoft at 19.3, 19.2 and 10.4 million takedown notices, respectively.

Read more...



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