News

Samsung Touts Over 10 Million Galaxy S4 Sales in First Month

Paul Lilly — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:21:27 +0000

Fastest selling Galaxy device to date.

The cold, hard truth for companies like Nokia and HTC is that one of their biggest competitors, Samsung, is red hot right now. Apple faces the same concern, though the Cupertino company isn't fighting for scraps like the other guys, it's leaving them behind alongside Samsung, the latter of which just announced it has surpassed 10 million Galaxy S4 sales in less than a month after its commercial debut.

If it took you 10 seconds to get to this point in the article, Samsung just sold another 40 Galaxy S4 devices, as the South Korean handset maker claims it's selling four S4 devices every second. It's a new record for Samsung, which is seeing quicker sales with its Galaxy S4 than any of its predecessors.

"On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung Galaxy S4. At Samsung we’ll continue to pursue innovation inspired by and for people," said JK Shin, CEO and President of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.

There's no single reason for Samsung's success, but several. Android at this point is a mature operating system that's really come into its own with the launch of Jelly Bean; the Galaxy S4 device itself is well equipped with a large screen, fast processor, and several features; and finally, Samsung has done a great job marketing the S4's features in a series of TV ad spots, especially when it comes to showing off the built-in camera and the device's editing tricks.

It also helps that Samsung has made the device available in many corners of the world. The Galaxy S4 is currently being sold in more than 110 countries and will gradually be rolled out to 155 territories via 327 partners.

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EVGA Launches New Double Ball Bearing Cooling Solution Dubbed ACX

Paul Lilly — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:12:25 +0000

How EVGA's high-end GPU keeps its cool.

Nvidia and its hardware partners are all about the GeForce GTX 780 launch, but that's not the only thing on tap from EVGA. The GPU maker is introducing a totally new ACX Cooler with a double ball bearing design that's more efficient at dissipating heat than the company's previous coolers. A large part of the increased cooling performance is due to the 40 percent increase in heatsink volume, allowing for a 15 percent reduction in GPU temperatures.

EVGA didn't just pay attention to cooling the GPU, but also the surrounding components that make up the card. The ACX Cooler features a reinforcement baseplate that helps maintain a straight PCB (printed circuit board), which helps lower mosfet temperatures by 7 percent and memory temperatures by 15 percent.

Perhaps the most impressive upgrade is that EVGA is using high quality fan blades that are 700 percent stronger and weigh 25 percent less when compared to competitors' dual fan designs, the company claims. By EVGA's math, that makes them 20 percent more efficient by requiring lower power levels. And that dual ball bearing design we touched on earlier? EVGA says they have a 12-year lifespan.

Here's a look at the cooler on EVGA's upcoming GeForce GTX 780 graphics card:

Stay tuned to this space as we currently have the card in our lab for testing and will release benchmarks soon!

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OCZ's Vertex 450 Solid State Drive Family Runs Barefoot

Paul Lilly — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:00:25 +0000

New SSD line gets its kicks from the Indilinx Barefoot 3 Series controller.

One thing OCZ had yet to do up to this point was deploy in-house ASIC technology on its Vertex family of solid state drives. That changes with the introduction of the Vertex 450 Series, which OCZ is marketing as a mid-range performer that sits between its value offerings and flagship Vector line. The Vertex 450 Series uses OCZ's Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 controller, essentially a newer iteration of the Barefoot controller found in the Vertex 4.

In comparing the two, the Barefoot 3 M10 has a lower clockspeed and supports 20nm NAND flash memory. It also boasts AES-256 encryption, sustained performance across all file types, and a power-optimized clock generator that helps improve yield and drives down cost, the combination of which translates into better overall availability and value for consumers, OCZ says.

The Vertex 450 Series pipes data through a SATA 6Gbps interface at various rates, depending on the capacity. Here's a breakdown of each one's performance:

128GB: 525MB/s read, 290MB/s write, 75,000 4KB random read IOPS, 70,000 4KB random write IOPS
256GB: 540MB/s read, 525MB/s write, 85,000 4KB random read IOPS, 90,000 4KB random write IOPS
512GB: 540MB/s read, 530MB/s write, 85,000 4KB random read IOPS, 90,000 4KB random write IOPS

All three drives come with a 3-year warranty, Acronis cloning software, and a 3.5-inch adapter. MSRPs have been set to $130 (128GB), $235 (256GB), and $500 (512GB).

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AMD Details Multifaceted Mobile APU Strategy

Paul Lilly — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:12:19 +0000

AMD attempts to change with the market.

The rapid shift to mobile seems to have caught x86 chip makers off guard, but on the bright side for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), this tectonic shift in technology represents a new opportunity to perhaps do things differently than before. Maybe the outcome will be different, maybe not, but either way, we have an early look at AMD's agenda for the changing market place, and it starts with "Temash."

Temash

Temash is AMD's solution for touch tablets, notebooks, and hybrids less than 13 inches in size. According to AMD, it's Temash-based APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) offer the best graphics of any SoC (System-on-Chip) on the planet and is part of its "Elite Mobility" platform.

"The performance of Elite Mobility APUs will reset user expectations for what they can do in tablets and hybrids," AMD explains.

Compared to its 2012 platform, AMD's Elite Mobility APUs for 2013 offer up to 212 percent more performance with less than half the power consumption. And compared to Intel's CloverTrail parts, AMD says Temash has several advantages, including application acceleration through GPU compute, DirectX 11 support, high-speed SATA support, support for up to two USB 3.0 ports, 8GB system memory support, and more.

AMD announced three Temash APUs, including the A6-1450 (four cores clocked at 1GHz base/1.4GHz max, 2MB L2 cache, DDR3L-1066 support, 8W TDP) with Radeon HD 8250 graphics (128 Radeon cores, 300MHz base/400MHz max clockspeed); A4-1250 (two cores clocked at 1GHz, 1MB L2 cache, DDR3L-1333 support, 8W TDP) with Radeon HD 8210 graphics (128 Radeon cores, 300MHz); and A4-1200 (two cores clocked at 1GHz, 1MB L2 cache, DDR3L-1066 support, 3.9W TDP) with Radeon HD 8180 graphics (128 Radeon cores, 225MHz).

Kabini

Moving up to AMD's Mainstream APU platform, we have Kabini. AMD is pitching Kabini as the first x86 quad-core SoC for entry-level and mainstream systems with best-in class graphics on the level of consoles. These consist of two A-Series APUs, including the A6-5200 (four cores, 2GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 25W TPD) with Radeon HD 8400 graphics (600MHz) and A4-5000 (four cores, 1.5GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 15W TDP) with Radeon HD 8330 graphics (600MHz), and three E-Series APUs, including the E2-3000 (two cores, 1.65GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 15W TDP) with Radeon HD 8280 graphics (450MHz), E1-2500 (two cores, 1.4GHz, 1MB L2, 15W TDP) with Radeon HD 8240 graphics (400MHz), and E1-2100 (two cores, 1GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 9W TDP) with Radeon HD 8210 graphics (300MHz).

Richland

AMD's "Elite Performance" tier is where its Richland APUs take residence. These parts purportedly offer up to 71 percent better graphics performance than Intel's Core i5 line while still being able to run up to 10+ hours while resting and 7.5+ hours surfing the web, AMD claims. These chips are destined for elite ultrathins.

Here's a look at the Richland parts and their respective specs:

Between Temash, Kabini, and Richland, AMD seems to have all of its mobile bases covered, now it's just a matter of whether or not it can bring them home to consumers.

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ASRock's Specially Coated 8 Series Motherboards are Waterproof

Paul Lilly — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:58:07 +0000

Don't try this at home.

Before self-contained liquid cooling solutions (LCS) became mainstream, water cooling enthusiasts would march over to places like Danger Den (R.I.P.) and order custom parts, fit them together, and then pray to Poseidon that he'd have mercy against leaks. Back then, water cooling aficionados sure could have used a board like any of ASRock's new specially coated 8 Series mobos. Using a layer of "Comformal Coating," ASRock says its treated mobos aren't afraid to get wet, a trait the company hopes the professional overclocking crowd will embrace.

"The special layer of Conformal Coating makes ASRock's motherboards invulnerable to conductive liquids, so overclockers won't have to worry about accidentally spilling liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, or even clam chowder over their motherboards while they are overclocking," ASRock explains. "Along with conductive liquids, Conformal Coating also protects the motherboard against dust, corrosion and extreme temperatures. It is the ultimate armor for the upcoming 8 Series motherboards."

ASRock demonstrates the feature in a short YouTube video, which we've embedded below. Bear in mind that the water you see being poured over the motherboard was routed to avoid the pins, which ASRock says still carries the risk of short circuiting. That means you probably can't get away with sticking one of these boards on the bottom of your fish tank, but should an accidental spill occur, there's a good chance your system will survive, or at least the mobo.

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Futuremark Injects Battery Test Into Upcoming PCMark 8 Benchmark

Paul Lilly — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:01:49 +0000

Popular benchmarking tool receives a significant update.

Looking for something new to test your hardware with? Hang tight for about another month and you'll be able to stress your components using Futuremark's upcoming PCMark 8 software. Futuremark received help from members of its Benchmark Development Program, which include Acer, AMD, Condusiv Technologies, Dell, HGST, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, SanDisk, Seagate, and Western Digital.

"We believe that this open process of close cooperation with industry experts is the only way to create accurate and impartial benchmarks that measure performance fairly. Having high-level access to the industry's leaders also ensures that our benchmarks are not only relevant for today's hardware, but remain relevant year after year," Futuremark said.

Like previous versions of the popular benchmark, PCMark 8 focus on tests that mimic real-world usage scenarios, such as browsing the web, photo editing, video chat, writing, and gaming. New to this edition, however, are additional benchmarks based on productivity and creativity applications from Adobe and Microsoft.

Also new is a "Battery Life" mode that loops a test until the battery is almost empty. Testing battery life is the one trickiest things to do since everyone uses their PCs differently, so we're pretty interested to see how PCMark 8's test does with it.

PCMark 8 is in the final stages of development and expected to launch by the end of next month.

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Store More Than Just Photos in Flickr's 1TB Bucket

Paul Lilly — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:38:00 +0000

An end-around solution to storing common files in Flickr.

In the process of overhauling Flickr, Yahoo announced that photographers would be allowed to upload up to 1TB of photos and videos for free, the only restrictions being the size of each individual file (200MB for photos and 1GB for 1080p videos) and length of clips (up to 3 minutes long). Other than those caveats, it's a generous storage container that's big enough to hold half a million photos shot at 6.5 megapixels. But what if you could also upload common files? There's a way you can do that.

Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek discovered a piece of interesting Ruby code posted to Github called flickr-store. Developer Ryan LeFevre came up with the code, which lets users encode any file as a PNG so that arbitrary data can then be uploaded to Flickr.

"This is mostly proof of concept right now. Don't do anything beyond tinkering with it yet," LeFevre warns.

If it works as intended, then it's a pretty slick workaround that could come in handy for backing up certain files, though we wouldn't recommend using it to store critical data. The biggest reason is that it's not immediately clear whether such a method runs afoul of Flickr's terms of service.

"I'm sure they frown upon it, but they claim you cannot upload anything that interferes with the services and I don't believe this does," LeFevre told InformationWeek.

In other words, caveat emptor.

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Former HTC Employee Encourages Other Staff to "Just Quit" the Company

Paul Lilly — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:09:19 +0000

Rough waters ahead for HTC.

My how the mighty have fallen. It seems hard to believe now, but HTC was once a top dog in mobile. Having led the Android revolution with the introduction of the HTC Dream (you may know it as the T-Mobile G1), HTC for a long while was reporting record revenues and profits. More recently, however, HTC's been struggling to remain relevant in a category (mobile) that's largely dominated by Apple and Samsung, and it's slumping sales bear that out. Equally troubling for HTC as it tries to right its ship is that its crew is turning against it and jumping overboard.

Eric Lin, former product strategy manager at HTC, took to Twitter to encourage other employees to quit, suggesting he's much happier after having done so himself.

"To all my friends still at HTC -- just quit. Leave now. It's tough to do, but you'll be so much happier, I swear," Lin tweeted earlier this week.

There are some funny comments that follow, including one that reads, "I like your subtlety; I almost didn't get that you were telling everyone at HTC to quit," but this is no laughing matter for HTC.

Lin isn't the only one to jump ship. So did former chief product officer Kouji Kodera, who HTC said left to "pursue other interests," along with several others from marketing and communications positions, AllThingsD reports. The timing of the departures stinks for HTC, which is trying to reverse course and focus its efforts on building and marketing a small number of killer devices rather than bombard consumers with dozens of different models.

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Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Case Now Available in White

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:39:48 +0000

It's bigger on the inside

You would be hard pressed to list mini-ITX cases capable of accommodating up to six 3.5"/2.5" hard drives. We also can’t think of too many, but we do know that Swedish company Fractal Design's Node 304 is definitely one such deceptively spacious case — the Tardis of PC cases, if you will.

The Node 304 has been on the market for quite a while now and, as some of you might recall, recently we even told you about a CyberPowerPC machine that uses it. But until now there was one big problem: it was only available in black. Thankfully, Fractal Design has finally expanded the color options and the minimalist case is now also available in white.

The Node 304, which has an MSRP of $89.99, can hold a lot of other things besides all those hard drives. Here are some technical specs:

Mini ITX, DTX motherboard compatibility
Two expansion slots
Six 3.5" or 2.5" HDD / SSD
ATX PSUs, up to 160mm in length (To fit in combination with a long graphics card, PSUs with modular connectors on the back typically need to be shorter than 160 mm)
Graphics cards, up to 310mm in length, when 2 HDD brackets are removed (Graphics cards longer than 170 mm will conflict with PSUs longer than 160mm)
Tower CPU coolers, up to 165 mm tall
Includes three Silent Series R2 hydraulic bearing fans and a three-speed fan controller
Fan filter for graphics card
Two USB 3.0 ports on the front ( includes internal USB 3.0 to 2.0 adapter)
Case dimensions (W x H x D): 250 x 210 x 374 mm
Case volume: 19,5 Liters
Net weight: 10.8lb

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Opera Browser for Android Out of Beta, Officially Launches

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:54:36 +0000

A meeting of the mobile minds.

Opera isn't uber popular on the desktop, though it's been able to spread its wings on mobile. The same can be said for Google's Android platform (which makes sense, considering Android is a mobile platform). If you want to mash these two together, feel free to do so starting today. Opera for Android is now officially launched for free from Google Play, Opera Software announced on Tuesday.

"Most people just see a fraction of what the web has to offer," says Rikard Gillemyr, EVP of Consumer Products at Opera Software. "We check out the same sites every day, and you can get through with the latest news after just a short bus ride. We wanted to give people a relaxed way of discovering interesting articles and checking them out without any extra effort."

One of the things Opera for Android introduces to mobile users is an "Off-Road" feature. Using data compression, the Off-Road algorithm reduces the amount of data traffic while browsing your Android phone so that you can surf a little more comfortably on crummy connections.

Opera for Android also sports a redesigned interface with a lighter color scheme that the Norwegian browser maker claims is "super intuitive to use."

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Microsoft Announces Xbox One Console

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:26:44 +0000

An all-in-one home entertainment device.

Gamers have been eagerly anticipating the launch of Microsoft's next generation Xbox console, and today they finally got what they've been waiting for. Microsoft's next console, previously referred to as Durango and Xbox 720, was introduced to the world as Xbox One, a name that underscores Microsoft's intent to rule the living room with an all-in-one entertainment system that's equally adept at playing games as it is for watching live TV, chatting on Skype, browsing photos and videos, and more. The device itself looks rather large and almost VCR-like.

Microsoft's Don Mattrick took to the stage and talked about how the living room has become "too complex, too fragmented, and too slow." The Xbox One is Microsoft's answer to these problems, and much of the magic of the new console has to do with intelligent voice recognition and gesture control.

Navigation

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, demoed several of Xbox One's navigation features. One of big differences between the Xbox One and 360 is that the console recognizes who you are right off the bat. Say "Xbox On" and it will turn on your device and launch straight into your custom profile with your personalized home screen. It will also remember what you were last doing, in case you wanted to jump back into a game or movie that you had to duck out of prematurely.

One of the most impressive demos was Mehdi showing how quickly and smoothly the Xbox One can switch between tasks, going from Internet Explorer ("Xbox Internet Explorer!") to watching movies ("Xbox movie!") and live TV. It will be interesting to see what kind of relationship Microsoft and the Xbox One has with cable providers. It can also, of course, play games. The Xbox One recognizes gestures, too. Reach out your arms, grab, and close to bring up the Home screen, or expand to go back to where you just came from.

A new Snap Mode allows you to multi-task, to an extent. While you're watching a movie, for example, you can have Skype running in a sidebar on the right or look up content on the web via IE.

Live TV figures to be a prominent feature of the Xbox One. Say "Show the guide" to bring up a listing of TV shows and then navigate through voice control, by browsing favorites, or by seeing what's "Trending," which is a new tab added to the Dashboard. If you're bored with your program, you can say "What's on HBO?" and Xbox One will respond with a listing of shows and movies on HBO.

What About the Hardware?

As for the hardware, well, the Xbox One will rock an 8-core CPU with 5 billion transistors, 8GB of system memory, 500GB hard drive, Blu-ray drive (yes, the Xbox is finally getting Blu-ray!), 802.11n Wi-Fi, HDMI in/output, and USB 3.0 support. Beyond that, it's not clear if that RAM will be unified like it is on the PlayStation 4 or which exact processor and GPU Microsoft is tapping into, or whether it will be x86 based like Sony's console. We suspect those details will come to light in the coming months, and potentially at E3, where Microsoft will make several Xbox 360 announcements.

On the platform side, Microsoft described a three-in-one OS architecture:

Xbox software that gives developers deep access to the sysem and hardware
A Windows kernel
Special software to connect the two above OSes

Following the press conference, Nvidia revealed to us that the company will offer the console PhysX support. Whether that is on the GPU side or CPU side is still up in the air. Maximum PC has tried reaching out to Nvidia for more clarification on the matter to only recieve a "no comment" reply. Regardless, with PhysX support coming to the Xbox One, this will be especially interesting as earlier rumors pegged the Xbox One as using AMD components for both the CPU and GPU. This could theoretically mean the green and red team may be collaborating on the console in some capacity.

UPDATE: AMD has confirmed it is indeed designing an APU for the Xbox One. “AMD is very excited to be working with Microsoft on their next-generation Xbox One. The Microsoft Xbox One leverages a single-chip, semi-custom AMD APU, with custom components co-developed with Microsoft designed to enable unique attributes of the system Microsoft is bringing to market,” said Saeid Moshkelani, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD's Semi-Custom Business Unit.

UPDATE #2: A Microsoft representative confirmed to us that AMD would be the Xbox One's primary parts maker, stating, "AMD is our primary partner for the custom silicon that makes up our GPU/CPU SOC that is the heart of Xbox One. We don’t have any further details about Nvidia PhysX at this time, but do stay tuned."

Updated Kinect Sensor and Controller

A new Kinect sensor will be paired with every Xbox One console. It expands to 1080p, can read more joints than before, understands subtle movements like a flick of the wrist, and can even detect your heartbeat when exercising. Microsoft also updated the familiar controller so that it's more ergonomic, though retains the same semi-butterfly shape as previous versions.

Xbox Live

Sorry folks, Microsoft isn't giving up its subscription-based Xbox Live service in favor of free online play for everyone. The same memberships as today will exist, though the backend infrastructure is significantly overhauled. While today's Xbox Live service taps into 15,000 servers, there will be 300,000 servers powering Xbox One's Live service.

Microsoft will put that horsepower to use in part for better matchmaking. It will search for opponents in one game while you're playing another, and overall, Microsoft envisions a deeper, richer Live experience.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Finally, Call of Duty: Ghosts made an appearance towards the end of the event. Microsoft announced that will continue its exclusive downloadable content (DLC) deal with Activision, ensuring Xbox One gamers get DLC before gamers on other devices.

There's a new game engine being introduced in Ghosts. It will run at a steady 60 frames per second while you control new characters in a new game world. The script is being hammered out by Stephen Gaghan, writer of Traffic and Syriana.

Dogs will be part of your squad and are able protect your team and sniff for explosives. Other animals, like fish, will move out of your way as you get close, which is part of a new artificial intelligence (A.I.) system. There will be dynamic events like earthquakes, and player-driven events too. You'll be able to customize your characters in multiplayer, choosing heads, bodies, helmets, and other gear.

"It will be the best Call of Duty game we've ever ever made," Activision's Erik Hirschberg declared.

That wraps up the highlights. Microsoft didn't announce a price or release date, instead confirming what we already know, which is that Xbox One will be available "later this year."

What did you think of the announcement? Are you as bummed as we are that more hardware details weren't revealed? Let us know in the comments!

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Yahoo Overhauls Flickr, Ups Free Storage Ante to 1TB

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:53:46 +0000

Let the free storage wars begin.

Yahoo wasn't just content to spend $1.1 billion acquiring Tumblr, it also went out and revamped its Flickr photo sharing service in a significant way. The first thing you'll notice is a tiled interface with larger size images. Users are able to upload full resolution photos, and to make sure you have plenty of online space to store your photography, Yahoo is offering 1TB of online storage for free in an attempt to make the service "awesome again."

That trumps Google's 15GB of free storage, which the sultan of search allows you to distribute however you wish across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+. Yahoo limits photo uploads to 200MB each on its free tier and 1080p video uploads to 1GB each, up to 3 minutes long. You can upload and download in full original quality.

"Flickr’s stunning new desktop design puts photos at the heart of the experience. Built around a new photostream that gives you a vivid and endlessly scrolling gallery, it’s easy to see what your friends are posting and what they’re saying about your photos," Yahoo stated in a blog post. "And because Flickr has always been about exploring photographs from users around the world, we’ve also created a new slideshow that displays the most spectacular Flickr photos in gorgeous full-screen."

For $50 per year, you can sign up for an "Ad Free" account with all the same benefits of the free tier, but without ads (makes sense). Alternately, you can cough up $500 per year to double the storage allotment to 2TB (makes poor fiscal sense).

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HGST Expands Notebook Drive Capacity to 1.5TB

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:52:58 +0000

Big storage, little drive.

HGST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital, announced on Tuesday what it claims is the highest storage density of any hard drive and highest capacity HDD for the mainstream mobile market, the Travelstar 5K1500. The new Travelstar 5K1500 is purportedly the industry's first 9.5mm to offer 1.5TB of storage capacity, though that's not all it brings to the table. High shock protection and low power performance are also traits of HGST's newest HDD.

That's all fine and dandy, but isn't the market shifting towards solid state drives?

"Contrary to popular belief, the mobile hard drive market is not being replaced by SSDs. We continue to invest in and serve both the traditional 9.5mm and 7mm thin and light HDD mobile markets as they offer the best cost-per-GB, performance and proven product reliability for high-capacity, mainstream, Ultrabook and A/V content creation notebook markets," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at HGST. "HGST continues to have a strong share in the 2.5-inch market and the new Travelstar 5K1500 hard drive is the latest addition to our broad line of 5,400 and 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch drives, giving OEMs, ODMs and integrators an opportunity to grow and differentiate their product lines."

The Travelstar 5K1500 serves up its storage capacity on three platters. It has 32MB of cache, a 5400 RPM spindle speed, and a SATA 6Gbps interface. According to HGST, it benches better in PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 than its currently shipping two-platter 5400 RPM models.

HGST sees a broad market for its new drive, including notebooks, external HDD applications, gaming consoles, and all-in-one (AIO) desktop PCs. Initial drives will be available in June, followed by an optional self-encrypting version in the third quarter of this year. Pricing has not yet been announced.

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15 Technology Failures

Mark Pilkington — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:40:03 +0000

Duke Nukem Forever, Windows ME, Google Wave, and more!

Predicting the next big thing is never easy, especially when it comes to technology. It's easy to lose count of the number of times Microsoft or Google have promised to create products that will revolutionize our lives. Granted, occasionally the corporate gurus are right – smartphones and wireless networks being two great examples. But for all the successful launches, there are as many products that don’t quite get it right. It could be a fantastic idea on paper, but when it comes to fulfilling the dream, they become nothing more than technology failures.

Following on from our earlier article way back in 2010 covering the 13 Biggest Tech Blunders of the Decade we bring you 15 more embarrassing tech failures that some companies would rather you forget.

Did you own or ever use any of these tech blunders? If so, let us know in the comments below!

Sony Teases PlayStation 4 Console Reveal Ahead of Microsoft's Xbox Announcement

Paul Lilly — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:26:39 +0000

It's 'Game-on' between Sony and Microsoft.

Sony today provided a first glimpse of what its next generation PlayStation 4 (PS4) console will look like, though a quick peek is all you get. The reveal comes in the form of a 39-second YouTube clip that flashes between various different close-ups and a blurry shot of the square-shape console as the camera moves increasingly closer, though never coming into focus. Sony is planning to fully unveil the PS4 at E3 on June 10.

The timing of Sony's teaser video represents a bit of gamesmanship, as Microsoft is set to announce its next Xbox console (codenamed Durango) tomorrow morning. Thus will begin the next-generation console wars, though it will be a war of words and speculation since both companies are planning to make their respective platforms available to purchase this holiday shopping season.

One of the big things gamers will be paying attention to during tomorrow's announcement is whether or not the new Xbox will require an always-on Internet connection. Ex-Microsoft Studios employee Adam Orth ended up resigning after defending always-on devices on his Twitter account by talking down to other users.

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