function – Page 40 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Sony’s testing a PS4 update that lets you pick up your game where you left off

Sony’s PlayStation 4 has been a sales success since its launch and recently crossed 20 million units sold to customers. Of course, now that gamers have one they’re expecting new features and Sony might be about to pick up the pace. Posts on NeoGAF and Twitter reveal the PlayStation MVP program (apply for access here ) is being used to beta test a new update, and the feature list reportedly has some nice additions: Share Play at 60fps (up from 30fps), trophy tweaks, and an improved Suspend/Rest mode that will keep your games and apps ready to go when you return. That last one is a feature the Xbox One already has, and that we’ve been expecting since the PS4 was announced . @Wario64 I’ll do you one better… pic.twitter.com/uMRCjBI3tv – The C-Note Files (@cnpalmer75) March 6, 2015 Since the system launched Sony has added bits like PS Now, custom soundtracks and more , but most of its updates brought only vague promises of increased stability. Meanwhile the Xbox One system it’s competing with — which launched with software charitably described as half-baked — has been patching up feature holes with monthly-ish updates and a beta program letting owners test out features before they roll out widely. If Sony can speed up the curve on software rollouts to match its impressive hardware, everyone will be winning. Filed under: Gaming , HD , Sony Comments Via: Wario64 (Twitter) (1) , (2) Source: NeoGAF

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Sony’s testing a PS4 update that lets you pick up your game where you left off

NVIDIA’s got a new GPU monster, and it’s called Titan X

NVIDIA just announced the Titan X , its latest powerhouse graphics card, at Epic Game’s GDC session this morning. And boy, it sounds like a monster: According to NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, it’s now the world’s most powerful GPU with more than 8 billion transistors (a bit of a jump from the 7 billion in last year’s Titan Z). Titan X is powered by the company’s new Maxwell architecture, and it packs in 12 gigabytes of VRAM, just like the Titan Z. NVIDIA isn’t revealing much else about the new GPU yet — it has its own conference in a few weeks, after all — but at this point it sounds like the video card we’ll all be pining for this year. While it may seem strange for Huang to tease the Titan X at another company’s event, he had a good reason: It’s powering a new VR experience called Thief in the Shadows , a joint effort between Epic, Oculus, and Weta Digital, which puts you in the shoes of someone exploring the dragon Smaug’s treasure-filled cave from The Hobbit. Don’t miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page right here . Filed under: Gaming , NVIDIA Comments Source: NVIDIA

Photorealism on a large scale with Unreal Engine 4’s new assets

“It’s getting ridiculous.” Epic Games Chief Technology Officer Kim Libreri is tired of chairs — and rocks, and grass, and trees — in the games created in Unreal Engine 4, Epic’s game development platform. It’s not that he doesn’t like everyday objects, he simply sees them as a collective issue to fix: They’re standard, repeatable items that developers don’t need to spend time making, since they already exist in a ton of other games. To that end, Epic is releasing on its UE4 Marketplace a set of detailed, photo-real assets and a system that places these items intelligently throughout game worlds, available for studios of all sizes. “Once a chair’s been made, there’s no reason to make a custom version of that chair, ” Libreri says. “You might as well share it with the community…. It’s mind-boggling when you think about how many games have made the equivalent of the Aeron chair.” Using these high-quality 3D assets and a new system that allows developers to dictate how objects are procedurally generated in an area, Epic was able to populate 100 square miles of nature environment in nine weeks. Developers jokingly dubbed this world “New Scotland, ” since half of the assets were sourced in the UK and half in New Zealand. “Obviously you can’t populate 100 square miles by hand, ” Libreri says, and Unreal Engine 4 General Manager Ray Davis cuts in. “Well, you can , ” he jokes. “We could, ” Libreri says. “We could be really stupid and spend lots and lots of money and time to do that. So, we came up with a procedural system that allows the content generators – our artists – and now our customers as well, to be able to specify rules of placement of vegetation and rocks and trees, and it’s got some smarts. You can basically tell it, ‘Don’t plant a bush under a tree because it’s not going to get enough light. It’s not going to grow.’ Or, ‘This is rock, you won’t be able to have this kind of thing growing out of a rock, but you can have grass in the little crevices, ‘ and so on and so forth.” The goal is to make these assets and systems available to teams of all sizes and skill levels, Davis adds: “The cool thing is, once you’ve got that chair digitized, you just drag and drop, and you can use it. You don’t have to know anything more than that. We’re really interested to make it so whether you’re a team of one or a team of 100 or 1, 000, god forbid, you’re still able to create these high-quality experiences.” Filed under: Gaming , HD Comments

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Photorealism on a large scale with Unreal Engine 4’s new assets

Watch ‘Tomorrow’s World’ show off CGI, 1982 style

These days, CGI is everywhere, but in 1982 it was an emergent technology that signalled a new era for movie makers and broadcasters. Always on the cutting edge of technology at the time, popular BBC show Tomorrow’s World (we miss you, Phillipa!) documented some of the very first machines capable of delivering real-time effects. Back then, turning a 2D image into a three-dimensional cube wasn’t easy, it required a 900lb machine made by Hewlett Packard that relied on effects coded in Pascal. Certainly a far cry from the full-length movies we see being created on Macs today. It’s a nostalgic look back at what older generations would once have considered bleeding edge technology, but also to see how far we’ve come in a few decades. Filed under: Software , Alt Comments Via: Geek

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Watch ‘Tomorrow’s World’ show off CGI, 1982 style

Crysis 3, Doom 3 and more ported to Android, powered by NVIDIA

“Can it play Crysis ?” is the question people are still asking after all these years, despite the vast majority of game hardware now being more than capable of running Crytek’s gorgeous first-person shooter. It’s how NVIDIA introduced Crysis 3 this week, running on its new Android TV-powered NVIDIA Shield set-top box. Which is to say yes, it can play Crysis . The game is outright running on Android, albeit only Android devices powered by NVIDIA’s bleeding edge X1 processor . More than just Crysis 3 , NVIDIA’s lining up other partners to port major games to Android — specifically, to its own Android box. Doom 3: BFG Edition, Resident Evil 5, The Talos Principle, Metal Gear Solid: Revengeance and Limbo are joining Crysis 3 as native Android titles running on Shield. Randy Pitchford, president of Borderlands studio Gearbox Software, announced that Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel are also on their way to Shield. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang introduced the Shield’s accompanying controller as a device designed for hardcore gaming, capable of running up to 40 hours on a single charge. And NVIDIA says this is just the beginning: Expect more non-Android games to make their way to the company’s surprisingly powerful set-top box. We’ll have more news from NVIDIA as the week goes on. Don’t miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page right here . Filed under: Gaming , HD , NVIDIA Comments

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Crysis 3, Doom 3 and more ported to Android, powered by NVIDIA

Security flaw from the ’90s leaves Apple and Android users vulnerable

A team of cryptographers have discovered that a security flaw from way back in the ’90s still leaves users today vulnerable to cyberattacks. They’ve dubbed it “Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Key” or FREAK, and it renders everyone who uses Safari on Mac and iOS devices or Android’s stock browser susceptible to hacking when they visit certain “secure” websites. The researchers listed these affected websites on the study’s official page, and notable entries include government-owned ones, such as Whitehouse.gov, NSA.gov and FBI.gov. To understand what FREAK is, we need to go back to the early 1990s when SSL was in the midst of being developed. Apparently, the US government required companies to use weaker, 512-bit encryption for visitors from overseas, and stronger encryption for visitors stateside. In order to do that, SSL’s developers designed a mechanism that could deliver both. While the government eventually pulled the requirement, it was too late: this mechanism propagated and ended up being used on various software. That’s why during the research, the team managed to force browsers to use the weaker encryption, which one member was able to break within seven hours using the power of 75 computers. In comparison, a 1024-bit encryption would require a team of crackers, the power of a few million PCs, and around a year to hack into. According to Johns Hopkins research professor Matthew Green , this “export-grade” encryption was, in theory, “designed to ensure that the NSA would have the ability to ‘access’ communications, while allegedly providing crypto that was still ‘good enough’ for commercial use.” If this fossil from the era of JNCO pants and MC Hammer can still haunt us today, one has to wonder how NSA’s alleged backdoor entries into company websites and devices can affect us in the future. The researchers can’t say whether anyone already exploited the flaw, but they’ve proved that it can be used to steal a visitor’s personal info, as well as to hack into the affected website itself. Both Apple and Google are already working on a patch: iOS and Mac users can expect the fix for their devices to roll out next week. Android users, however, will have to wait for their manufacturers or carriers to issue an update, so it may be best to switch to Chrome for mobile , which isn’t vulnerable to the flaw, according to The Washington Post . PS: Want to read FREAK’s more technical details? Check out the researchers’ ” State Machine AttaCKs ” website. [Image credit: Shutterstock] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: The Washington Post , Tracking the FREAK Attack , Cryptographic Engineering , Reuters , SMACK

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Security flaw from the ’90s leaves Apple and Android users vulnerable

Tesla warns Model S hacks could injure drivers and its brand

Every year, all publicly traded US companies are required to notify investors of the unique risks to their business. Elon Musk’s Tesla abides by the same rules, and so yesterday laid out an extensive list of factors that it believes could potentially adversely affect its operations. While many of its concerns are to be expected, like worries over the safety of lithium ion batteries used in its cars or the high manufacturing costs of Model S , the company also warned investors that customers intent on pimping their rides could also put a considerable dent in Musk’s electric car empire. In its 10-K document, Tesla notes: “If our vehicle owners customize our vehicles or change the charging infrastructure with aftermarket products, the vehicle may not operate properly, which could harm our business.” The company specifically references “automobile enthusiasts” who want to hack their Tesla to improve its performance, warning that those who do may compromise the safety systems. It says some customers have already sought to modify their position in the driving seat, which reduces the effectiveness of the airbags. “We have not tested, nor do we endorse, such changes or products. In addition, customer use of improper external cabling or unsafe charging outlets can expose our customers to injury from high voltage electricity, ” says Tesla. “Such unauthorized modifications could reduce the safety of our vehicles and any injuries resulting from such modifications could result in adverse publicity which would negatively affect our brand and harm our business, prospects, financial condition and operating results.” Even though Tesla is rapidly growing its customer base, the company is still a minnow in a big automotive pond. Because it’s also helping to drive the adoption of electric cars, it has also had to deal with questions over safety, following reports that some of its vehicles caught fire after being involved in an accident . Tesla is basically admitting that it has no control over what its customers do with their cars, but knows that if some plucky tinkerer touches the wrong wire, it will be the one who has to deal with the fallout. Filed under: Transportation , Software Comments Via: Business Insider Source: Tesla

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Tesla warns Model S hacks could injure drivers and its brand

Metallica is releasing a remastered 1982 demo… on cassette

Dust off your tape players , folks: cassettes are still making a comeback. A number of independent artists have already leveraged the classic format, and Metallica is looking to join the bandwagon. The metal act recorded the seven-track No Life ‘Til Leather demo back in 1982, and the effort will be released on April 18th as a limited-edition cassette. If you tossed out that boombox a long time ago, the remastered tunes will be available on CD and vinyl this summer. This is the first time that any of the band’s demo material has been officially released , and it’s the first in a series of reissues planned through Blackened Recordings, a Metallica-owned label. “It’s time for us to put out some next-level reissues and do the song and dance of the catalog that everyone else has done; the U2s and the Led Zeppelins and the Oasises, ” drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone . “Instead of starting with Kill ‘Em All in 1983, we figured we’d go back another two years to when the band was formed in 1981.” Personally, I’m hoping the remastered version of Master of Puppets isn’t too far off. [Image credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for HBO, Blackened Recordings] Filed under: Portable Audio/Video Comments Via: Fact Magazine Source: Rolling Stone

Meet Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge

The last time Samsung put on a show in Barcelona, it came bearing the Galaxy S5 and that love-it-or-hate-it bandage back. Not exactly a high point in the company’s design history, you might say. Over the past year, though, that Korean juggernaut has come to the realization that it needs to pare and down and push a few more envelopes, a philosophy that begat weird, arguably wonderful experiments like the Note Edge. So, Samsung, it’s been a year – how far have you come? We have our answer. Meet the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge. The reason we’re discussing both phones at the same time is simple: If you look closely enough, you’ll find that they’re identical in almost every way that matters. Both sport bodies hewn of aluminum, sandwiched between two layers of Gorilla Glass 4. Both sport 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED screens (more on them later). Both have Samsung’s latest octacore chipset thrumming away in them, chipsets that pairs a quad 2.1GHz processor with a Quad 1.5Ghz one. (Oh, and they’ve both got 3GB of RAM as just for good measure). Both support LTE cat. 6. Both are slated for a global launch on April 10. You get where I’m going with this. Thing is, one is staggeringly more pretty than the other. If looks could kill… I’d be dead right now. To absolutely no one’s surprise, the Galaxy S6 edge is going to get the lion’s share of attention here at MWC, and probably over the weeks and months that’ll follow. It’s absolutely beautiful — easily the best looking, best feeling phone Samsung has ever made. The edge’s 5.1-inch screen gently curves away from you, leaving just enough room on the edges for the traditional power button and volume buttons. In case you were wondering, no, none of the wraparound apps created with the Note Edge SDK will work here; you can swipe through notifications and sift through news items, but there isn’t much more to things than that. Samsung’s main motivation in curving that screen was to make a phone that feels intensely comfortable in your hand, and you know what? They did it. Strangely, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the HTC One M8’s polished, smooth contours — with HTC’s minor design tweaks in place, the S6 edge almost feels more like the M8 than the M9 does. Now, the S6 doesn’t look bad at all: With its more conversative flat screen, it’s a handsome metal-and-glass evolution of the Galaxy S5. if the edge wasn’t unveiled right alongside it, we’d all be at least a little more forgiving. Two phones, one mind I only had about an hour to share with the GS6 twins, and trying to test for performance on not-quite-final hardware is pretty dicey to start with. That said, both devices ran terribly smoothly – every one of my actions and every one of the phone’s responses seemed fluid, effortless even. Thumbing through webpages, jumping in and out of open apps with the manic frenzy of a rabid squirrel and just generally trying to be a jerk didn’t phase the S6 or S6 edge in the slightest. In hand, both models felt just as snappy as HTC’s One M9, though we’ll have to wait for the benchmarks to help deliver the final verdict. Anyway, we’ve got a few things to thank for that snappy performance – Samsung says that Exynos octa-core chip running the show offers a 20 percent leap in performance while dramatically cutting down on power consumption, and Samsung’s surprisingly light touch with TouchWiz this time around. The TouchWiz of yore was an unsightly and ungainly mess, but with every generation Samsung has dialed down its intensity. This time, Samsung’s UI is paired with Android 5.0 Lollipop, and while most of TouchWiz’s features worked the same, they were redesigned with the lighter, cleaner Material Design aesthetic in mind. Not every feature made the cut again this time, either, – Samsung’s new outlook on life is totally cool with excising extraneous bits if it helps improve the overall experience. Again, it’s way too early to pass judgment, but I’d say the strategy seems to be paying off; for the first time in my life, I’m actually sort of enjoying TouchWiz. Samsung spent a year tinkering with camera modules too, and the end result is the 16-megapixel rear shooter with optical image stabilization and an f/1.9 lens. My early results seemed promising, though really, I was shooting in tiny room in a hotel – we’ll see what the camera can really do once we get our review unit in. Still, thoughtful touches like double tapping to home button to very quickly launch the camera and auto-tracking autofocus during video seem poised to help dramatically. Throw in support for both major wireless charging standards and magnetic wave payment technology that’ll come to the market as Samsung Pay and you’ve got a pair of devices that seem like the first substantive step forward this lumbering giant has taken in a long time. Is it a huge step? Maybe not, but it’s movement in a positive direction. In the end, the only real differences between the two are the inclinations of the screens they sport, the batteries lurking inside and their price tags. We don’t know how much they’ll cost but the edge will carry a notable premium over its pedestrian cousin. And there are, as always, some caveats you need to know about. You’ll be able to choose from 32, 64, or 128GB variants, but choose carefully – there’s no room for a MicroSD slot anywhere. You can’t remove the battery (the one major downgrade from the GS5) You’ve got a whopping four colors to choose from when you try to buy one. One looks hugely better than the other. Other than that though, Samsung is sending one message loud and clear: “Don’t count us out.” Lesson learned. Comments

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Meet Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge

Uber data breach compromises IDs of 50,000 drivers

An Uber database containing the names and driver’s license numbers of 50, 000 current and former drivers was accessed by an outside party in 2014, the company announced today. Uber discovered the breach on September 17, 2014, and an investigation revealed one instance of unauthorized access on May 13, 2014. This means the information has been in the wild for nearly a year, though Uber drivers haven’t reported anything fishy and the database is now secure, the company said. Uber began notifying affected drivers of the breach today and is offering a free year membership with an identity protection company. Of the 50, 000 compromised names, 21, 000 were based in California, prompting Uber to also notify the California attorney general, the LA Times says. Additionally, the company has filed a “John Doe” lawsuit in an effort to gather more information about the third party. “Uber takes seriously our responsibility to safeguard personal information, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this incident may cause, ” Uber said. The data breach comes one month after Uber’s security protocols received a clean bill of health as part of an external privacy audit, though that was spurred by high-profile missteps with information about Uber’s passengers, not its drivers. In that report, the investigating agency recommended Uber start training its workforce in security issues and it further restrict access to data among employees. “At Uber, protecting the personal information of riders is a core responsibility and company value, ” CEO Travis Kalanick said at the time. “Delivering on that value means that privacy is woven into every facet of our business, from the design of new products to how we interact with riders, drivers and the public at large.” Filed under: Software , HD Comments Source: Uber