Monthly Archives: August 2016

Oculus lawsuit now alleges “false and fanciful” origin story, stolen files

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John Carmack (left) poses with Oculus founder Palmer Luckey (center) and other members of the Oculus team. (credit: OculusVR)

The 2014 lawsuit filed against virtual reality headset company Oculus and its parent company Facebook has now received its first major amendment in nearly two years. The civil complaint from game publisher ZeniMax was updated on August 16 with 22 additional “paragraphs,” and those updates mince few words. Most notably, the lawsuit now names Oculus executives John Carmack and Brendan Iribe as defendants, in addition to the aforementioned companies and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey.

The updated filing, which was reported by Game Informer on Monday, still alleges that Oculus’s major VR technologies were taken from ZeniMax in a way that violated contracts and nondisclosure agreements—especially since Carmack originally worked for ZeniMax and had signed contracts that made ZeniMax the owner of any technologies he worked on within the company (specifically, at its subsidiary, id Software). Now that Iribe and Carmack are listed as defendants, ZeniMax has aimed further allegations directly at those two men—and have questioned claims that Luckey had much to do with the development of Oculus’ core technologies.

Issues with disclosure

In the last amended complaint, Zenimax simply said that “Rift’s VR Technology… had actually been developed by ZeniMax without Luckey’s involvement.” This new complaint goes much further, especially when talking about the ways Oculus bolstered its reputation en route to being acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014. “Oculus needed to be able to explain how it came to own VR technology” without acknowledging any misuse of another company’s technologies, the suit now claims, and it also alleges that Iribe instructed Oculus staffers to “disseminate to the press the false and fanciful story that Luckey was the brilliant inventor of VR technology” and “had developed that technology in his parents’ garage.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Oculus lawsuit now alleges “false and fanciful” origin story, stolen files

Microsoft Apps Will Be Pre-loaded On Lenovo and Motorola Android Devices

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An anonymous reader writes: There was a time when Microsoft was seen as the enemy of Linux and Apple communities. Understandably, at the time, the company only wanted Windows to succeed. Nowadays, however, the operating system is sort of inconsequential. Microsoft seems happy to have its software succeed on ‘competitor’ platforms such as iOS, Android, macOS, Ubuntu and more. Today, Microsoft announces that it has partnered with Lenovo on a new mobile initiative. The Windows-maker’s productivity apps will be pre-loaded on Lenovo and Motorola-branded devices running Google’s Linux-based Android operating system.As of earlier this year, Microsoft had over 74 Android OEM partners. As for submitter’s take on this, it’s pretty simple. Microsoft is going where users are. If they are not going to purchase Windows Phones, Microsoft will go to Android and iOS.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Microsoft Apps Will Be Pre-loaded On Lenovo and Motorola Android Devices

This is How South Florida Ends

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It’s a scorching midsummer day, and the sawgrass is still under a pale blue sky. Waist-deep in water and sinking slowly into the muck, I fend off mosquitos as a man from South Florida’s Water Management District mixes a bag of salt into a hot tub-sized bucket on the side of the road. Thirty feet away in the marsh, another city official wearing waders and a bug hat stands on a narrow steel walkway, dangling the end of a long hose over a plexiglass chamber.

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Source: Gizmodo – This is How South Florida Ends

Amazon Reportedly Launching Budget Streaming Music Service For Echo Speakers

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Amazon Reportedly Launching Budget Streaming Music Service For Echo Speakers
Amazon is currently working on a new music services similar in concept to what Spotify offers. The company has plans for a $10 a month subscription that would play all the music a customer wants to stream, wherever they want to stream. The second plan would stream the same music, but would cost half the price and only work on Amazon Echo.

Amazon

Source: Hot Hardware – Amazon Reportedly Launching Budget Streaming Music Service For Echo Speakers

Nouveau Open-Source NVIDIA Tests On Linux 4.8, Mesa 12.1-dev

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I haven’t run any Nouveau driver benchmarks recently for looking at the open-source NVIDIA Linux performance since there hasn’t been too much progress, particularly when it comes to re-clocking of the desktop GPUs for delivering better performance. However, with all the testing I’ve been doing on the Radeon side with Linux 4.8 and Mesa 12.1-dev Git, I decided to do a comparison with a few NVIDIA GeForce GPUs under this latest open-source driver stack.

Source: Phoronix – Nouveau Open-Source NVIDIA Tests On Linux 4.8, Mesa 12.1-dev

Epic Games Confirms Unreal Forums Hacked, Email Addresses Nabbed

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Epic Games Confirms Unreal Forums Hacked, Email Addresses Nabbed
We hear about hacks and attacks on web services all of the time, and often, there’s a big reason behind it. The attackers either want to fetch information for their financial gain, or just to simply cause havoc. In this latest case involving Epic Games’ forums, it appears to be the latter.

In a new blog post, Epic says that it believes

Source: Hot Hardware – Epic Games Confirms Unreal Forums Hacked, Email Addresses Nabbed

Make Super Smooth Boozy Slushies in an Ice Cream Maker

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Most boozy slushies are made by chucking some booze, mixers, and ice into a blender. It’s a simple process, but not a foolproof one, and can result in an overly icy, crunchy beverage. To prevent shards of frozen water from jacking up your vibe, make your slushies in an ice cream machine.

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Source: LifeHacker – Make Super Smooth Boozy Slushies in an Ice Cream Maker

Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10 million users

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Pokémon Go is starting to lose its buzz, with the latest tracking data seeming to suggest the game is simply a fad.

It had almost 45 million daily users in July, but this figure appears to have sunk by more than 12 million since the start of August, to just over 30 million said to be playing Pokémon Go. Further decline is expected, as downloads, engagement, and the time users spend on the app have all also visibly flopped, according to data provided by Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia.

Bloomberg, which saw the raw data, reported that other major apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat “can breathe a sigh of relief” that Pokémon Go is finally wobbling, as the game’s popularity had apparently been costing them considerable amounts of users.

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Source: Ars Technica – Pokémon Go loses its luster, sheds more than 10 million users

$720 Inspiron 13.3" Intel Core i7 2-In-1 Touch Laptop With 256GB SSD, $300 Gift Card With 2016 Samsung 4k UHD HDTV And More

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$720 Inspiron 13.3
Welcome back to the latest installment of HOT deals, direct from our friends at TechBargains. On tap for you all today, we have deals on a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 Intel Core i7-6500U based convertible device, a Samsung UN60KU6300 60″ 4K UHD Smart HDR Premium HDTV, an Intel Skull Canyon NUC, and more. Full details for all of today’s deals are

Source: Hot Hardware – 0 Inspiron 13.3″ Intel Core i7 2-In-1 Touch Laptop With 256GB SSD, 0 Gift Card With 2016 Samsung 4k UHD HDTV And More

G.Skill Shows Off Trident Z 8×8 GB and 8×16 DDR4-3333 Memory Kits

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When Intel launched its new Core i7 Broadwell-E processors for high-end desktops earlier this year, all leading makers of motherboards released their new breed of Intel X99-based products that were supposedly ‘optimized’ for the new CPUs. Makers of memory modules are also beginning to roll-out their new DDR4 quad-channel kits that can operate at high frequencies with tight timings qualified for the new processors. At IDF this week, G.Skill demonstrated two new 64 GB and 128 GB kits designed for high-end workstations that require significant memory bandwidth.


G.Skill’s upcoming quad-channel Trident Z 64 GB (8×8 GB) memory kit is rated to run at 3333 MT/s with CL13 13-13-33 latency settings at 1.35 V. Right now, the company only offers quad-channel 64 GB DDR4-3333 kits with CL16 18-18-38 timings (albeit, these are either 4×16 GB or 8×8 GB kits). Another upcoming Trident Z quad-channel kit has 128 GB (8×16 GB) capacity and can operate at 3333 MT/s with CL14 14-14-34 timings, which is considerably better when compared to CL16 18-18-38 latencies of currently available 128 GB DDR4-3333 kits from the company.



G.Skill claims that the Trident Z kits it demonstrated at IDF are based on Samsung’s 8 Gb DDR4 chips, but does not reveal whether these are ICs made using 20 nm or sub-20 nm process technology. More advanced DDR4 ICs coupled with the new memory controller inside Intel’s Broadwell-E CPUs could allow G.Skill to build new 64 GB and 128 GB DDR4-3333 HEDT kits with tight timings. It is to be expected that the company has managed to cherry-pick the right previous-gen ICs for its new memory modules and depending on the binning of such ICs, prices will be high.


The demonstrations at IDF were conducted using two systems equipped with Intel Core i7-6800K processors and ASUS ROG Rampage V Edition 10 or ASUS X99-Deluxe II motherboards. The PCs were running basic applications and did not require extensive cooling.



Traditionally, all Trident Z kits come equipped with aluminum heatsinks and feature Intel XMP 2.0 SPD profiles to make it easier for end-users to run them at their data-rates with the right timings and voltage. Expect the same features from the kits that G.Skill demonstrated at IDF.


The manufacturer did not announce when it plans to release its new Trident Z 64 GB DDR4-3333 CL13 and Trident Z 128 GB DDR4-3333 CL14 kits as well as their prices. Right now, G.Skill’s fastest 128 GB DDR4-3200 CL16 is available for $730 – $1042, depending on the retailer. Memory prices tend to be exponential at the high end, so these will cost a lot more.




Source: AnandTech – G.Skill Shows Off Trident Z 8×8 GB and 8×16 DDR4-3333 Memory Kits

Battlefield 1: “If BF4 was like Formula 1, this is more like rally”

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Horse charges, battle tanks, and armoured trains? Sign me up.

COLOGNE, Germany—With shooters trending towards the modern or futuristic—see the likes of Titanfall and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare—Battlefield 1 and its exaggerated take on the First World War is something of an anomaly. And yet, when it was unveiled in May, the first Battlefield 1 trailer became one of the most viewed and liked game trailers of all time. Who says old military technology would make for a less interesting game, eh?

More so than any other game in the series, Battlefield 1 has the potential to capture the spirit of much-loved games like Battlefield 1942 and the original Call of Duty, which were both set in WW2. Replacing guided missiles and thermal scopes with bolt-action rifles and bayonets forces you to play keener attention to the environment and, crucially, learn how to master the basics of your weapon instead of relying on gadgetry. The fundamental principles of staying alive in a war zone—checking all of your corners, keeping track of allies, only crossing an open-space when it’s safe, and making best possible use of vehicles—are brought to the fore.

“I think that the response we’ve had so far is that people seem to like the fact that it is an analogue battlefield that we’re presenting and that there’s less high-tech equipment,” explains Lars Gustavsson, Battlefield 1 design director. “Here we’ve brought in shorter engagement distances deliberately in order to expand the diversity of viable tactics, so it becomes a more accessible experience…Our analogy has been that if Battlefield 4 was Formula 1 then this is more like a rally championship. Both are great and highly competitive sports, but they work under different circumstances. There are more details in Formula 1, but rally is more brutal.”

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Source: Ars Technica – Battlefield 1: “If BF4 was like Formula 1, this is more like rally”