Tag: portfolio-cond

Fallout 4 won’t be coming to Xbox 360 or PS3

Last week’s big announcement of the long-anticipated Fallout 4 included confirmation of Xbox One, PS4, and PC versions of the game. But there was no official word on any versions for the tens of millions of gamers who still use an Xbox 360 or PS3. Now, Bethesda has confirmed that those gamers will need to upgrade their hardware if they want to revisit the wasteland. “[ Fallout 4 ] is not coming to 360 and PS3,” community manager Matt Grandstaff said in a NeoGAF thread about the game. “The stuff we’re doing will never work there.” That’s good news from a technical standpoint—the development team won’t have to hold back the game’s design to make it run on aging hardware—but bad news for those who have yet to buy a new console. Fallout 4 is part of a small wave of major franchises ignoring older consoles in upcoming releases. Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will be on “Xbox One, PS4 and PC. That’s it,” Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia told Eurogamer . Street Fighter V will be coming to PlayStation 4 and PC but not the aging PS3. And then there are first-party titles like Halo 5 , Forza Motorosport 6 , Uncharted 4 , and Ratchet & Clank that will be eschewing older consoles this time around. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fallout 4 won’t be coming to Xbox 360 or PS3

Bethesda counting down to an apparent Fallout announcement

We’re usually a bit reluctant to write about news that amounts to an announcement that an actual news announcement is coming soon. But when the announcement in question regards the much-loved  Fallout series, we’ll make a rare exception. So here we are, announcing that Bethesda has set up a countdown clock at fallout.bethesda.com letting us all watch the seconds tick by until… well, we’re not sure exactly. The only hints that we’re even expecting a Fallout announcement at all are that URL and the background “Indian head” test pattern familiar to anyone who has seen a recent Fallout loading screen. We’ll all find out what it means together when the countdown runs out at 10am EDT Wednesday morning, I guess. Bethesda recently announced that it would be hosting its first-ever pre-E3 press conference on June 14 , so it makes some sense that it would have big news to share for one of its biggest franchises. An teaser announcement of a new Fallout tomorrow could help soften the ground for a fuller reveal at that press conference. That would be similar to the extremely short Doom 4 teaser that came out last month, ahead of a promised longer trailer at the press conference. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bethesda counting down to an apparent Fallout announcement

Nvidia announces G-Sync for laptops, reveals low-level tech details

The big news from Nvidia might be the release of the GTX 980 Ti , but the company has also announced some updates for G-Sync. The variable refresh rate technology, which synchronizes the refresh rate of a compatible monitor to the frame rate of a game, is finally making the jump from desktop to laptop. Upcoming laptops from Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, and Clevo are all set to support the technology, and will feature 75Hz panels from 1080p all the way up to UHD (4K). Desktop users aren’t being forgotten either: There are some new monitors—including a lust-worthy 34-inch 21:9 75Hz IPS Acer X34 panel—featuring an updated G-Sync module that finally contains more than just a single DisplayPort input. Interestingly, G-Sync for laptops makes use of the embedded DisplayPort (eDP) standard, a standardised interface for hooking up display panels directly to internal graphics cards. On the desktop, G-Sync can only be used with compatible monitors that contain Nvidia’s G-Sync module. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nvidia announces G-Sync for laptops, reveals low-level tech details

Comcast 2Gbps fiber to launch “in a bunch of markets this month”

Comcast’s plan to launch a 2Gbps fiber-to-the-home service by the end of May didn’t come to fruition, but the company says the rollout is being delayed only briefly and will go live in numerous cities this month. Comcast originally said that its “Gigabit Pro” service would be available during May in the Atlanta metro area, Nashville, Greater Chicago, and four cities in Florida (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Jacksonville). Rollouts in June were to follow in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Northwest Indiana; and several parts of California (Chico, Fresno, Marysville/Yuba City, Merced, Modesto, Monterey, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara County, Stockton and Visalia metro areas.) Customers in Atlanta and West Palm Beach who wanted to order Gigabit Pro complained about the lack of availability on the company’s support forums . A Comcast employee originally said the service “will be available in your area [Atlanta] come early May” but amended that to May 28 and finally told customers, “The launch of this has been temporarily delayed. No tentative date has been announced yet.” Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast 2Gbps fiber to launch “in a bunch of markets this month”

US airport screeners missed 95% of weapons, explosives in undercover tests

Transportation Security Administration screeners allowed banned weapons and mock explosives through airport security checkpoints 95 percent of the time, according to the agency’s own undercover testing. ABC News reported the results on Monday, but Ars could not independently confirm them. According to ABC News, a Homeland Security Inspector General report showed that agents failed to detect weapons and explosives in 67 out of 70 undercover operations . The report said: Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was apparently so frustrated by the findings he sought a detailed briefing on them last week at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, according to sources. US officials insisted changes have already been made at airports to address vulnerabilities identified by the latest tests. It’s been a bad past two days when it comes to the government’s anti-terror strategy. The ABC News revelation came a day after a Senate impasse Sunday allowed parts of three terrorism-fighting aspects of the USA Patriot Act to expire, including the bulk telephone metadata program that Edward Snowden disclosed. Lawmakers are trying to broker a deal to the legislation that is needed, according to Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) because terrorists “want to kill us all.” Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US airport screeners missed 95% of weapons, explosives in undercover tests

Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Intel, after a couple of months of negotiation, has agreed to buy Altera for $16.7 billion (£11 billion) in cash. The acquisition comes just a few days after Avago announced its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom, the largest deal ever seen by the tech sector. The timing is probably not coincidental: Intel and Altera had reportedly been in talks since March. Much like the Avago-Broadcom deal, Intel-Altera is a consolidation move. Altera is the second largest maker of FPGAs and other programmable logic devices behind Xilinx . Intel makes a wide range of chips, but has only ever dabbled in FPGAs. Buying Altera will let Intel sell a wider variety of chips through its existing sales channels, while also potentially realising some savings through strategic job cuts. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel will acquire FPGA maker Altera for $16.7 billion

Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

If you call Verizon FiOS and try to cancel or downgrade your TV package, you might find that the FiOS rep knows almost as much about your TV viewing habits as you do. Verizon’s Rep Guidance software tells Verizon representatives what channels you watch to help them make a more effective sales pitch. The system, which also shows them how much Internet data you use and which pieces of TV equipment you use most, was detailed by a Verizon executive in a public presentation hosted by Data Driven NYC. A Quartz reporter  wrote about the presentation yesterday . Verizon “is now closely tracking exactly what you watch, what devices you use, and how much data you consume,” Quartz wrote. “It knows whether your household spars over DVR conflicts and how many hours your kids spend binge-watching shows on HBO. What’s more, the company is listening in on phone calls to customer service in real-time, with supervisors poised to jump at the moment they sense a fight brewing or hear trigger words from an unhappy customer, such as ‘switching to Time Warner Cable.'” Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon FiOS reps know what TV channels you watch

Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

NEW YORK—Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison Friday, following a jury’s finding in February that the 31-year-old was the mastermind behind the Silk Road, once the Internet’s largest online drug marketplace. Operating online as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht worked with a small staff to control everything sold on the site. He was arrested in October 2013, and the government made its case against him during a three-week trial here earlier this year. Ulbricht pleaded for leniency  during the hearing. “I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path,” he said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

AT&T wants to choose which online video services count against data caps

AT&T doesn’t want any rules preventing it from choosing which online video services count against its customers’ data caps. AT&T’s “Sponsored Data” program already charges businesses , often in the ad industry, for the right to deliver services without counting against customers’ mobile data caps. AT&T could potentially charge online video streaming services for exemptions from the caps imposed on AT&T home broadband subscribers as well or exempt its own online services from caps. Though AT&T doesn’t appear to have done this yet, the company this week asked the FCC to make sure it’s allowed to do so. AT&T’s request came after a group of companies and consumer advocacy organizations asked the Federal Communications Commission to prevent AT&T from granting data cap exemptions.  Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T wants to choose which online video services count against data caps

IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]

In an official statement issued today, the IRS announced that it has shut down an online service to obtain tax records after determining that “unusual activity had taken place on the application, which indicates that unauthorized third parties had access to some accounts on the transcript application.” according to an official statement by the agency. An initial review of that activity revealed that “access was gained to more than 100,000 accounts through the Get Transcript application,” according to the statement. The data was obtained not because of a hack of IRS systems, but because of the weak authentication used by the IRS to protect access to taxpayer data. The attackers were able to obtain taxpayer records using stolen personal identifying information—likely pulled from online financial fraud marketplaces. The Get Transcript application, a feature of the IRS’ site that allows taxpayers to download tax return and tax payment transaction data, was apparently targeted by financial fraudsters between February and mid-May. The service was shut down last week as the IRS investigated the activity, which may have been linked to the fraudulent filing of tax returns and transfer of tax refunds. Attempts were made to access over 200,000 accounts; roughly half failed because of incorrect information during the IRS’ authentication process. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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IRS system mined for over 100,000 taxpayer records by fraudsters [Updated]