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Xbox Live will offer two free games per month starting July, includes Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3

Kicking off Microsoft’s announcements, the company has said that Xbox Live will start offering free Xbox 360 games for its paying members, starting this July. In the run-up to the Xbox One’s launch, you’ll be able to pick up two titles each month, gratis — if you’re an Xbox Live Gold member. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it sounds faintly similar to what Sony’s PS Plus has offered its subscribers, albeit in a limited run. The Live UI on the older Xbox 360 console will also be getting a refresh, catching up with the more modern styling we’ve seen teased on the Xbox One. Follow our liveblog for all of the latest news from E3 2013. Filed under: Gaming , Microsoft Comments

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Xbox Live will offer two free games per month starting July, includes Assassin’s Creed 2 and Halo 3

Amazon introduces Storyteller tool to turn scripts into storyboards

Amazon Studios has been forging ahead with its push to develop original movies and TV series, and it has now introduced a new tool that it’s hoping will help foster further development. Dubbed Amazon Storyteller, the tool lets writers quickly turn their script into a storyboard without the need for any actual artistic skills. As Amazon explains it, the tool first scans the writer’s script and then “identifies the scenes, locations and characters from scene descriptions, and ‘casts’ them from a library of thousands of characters, props and backgrounds.” Writers and filmmakers can then choose to customize the storyboard or upload some of their own images if they like, before sharing it with others to solicit feedback (naturally, it’s only available if you submit your script to Amazon Studios). According to the company, the tool works best with contemporary dramas or romantic comedies given its current art assets, so you may still have your work cut out for you if you’re looking to storyboard your post-apocalyptic fantasy epic. Filed under: Internet , HD , Amazon Comments Source: Amazon Storyteller

Microsoft says IE10 owns the coveted ‘most energy efficient browser’ title

Ever been concerned about the energy consumption of your web browser ? Us neither, but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from ballyhooing that stat to sway you in favor of Internet Explorer . According to the latest tests it commissioned from Fraunhofer USA, IE10 uses up to 18 percent less power in browsing, Flash and HTML5 tasks than its main rivals, Chrome and Firefox. The company claims that translates into more than just boon for your battery life. Redmond goes so far as to say that if every single Chrome and Firefox user switched to IE10, it would save enough energy to power over 10,000 US homes for a year (translation: Google and Mozilla are hurting the Earth). We can’t and won’t vouch for the authenticity of that statement, but we do know that’s a lot of users we’re talking about. Filed under: Software , Microsoft Comments Via: Techcrunch Source: Microsoft

Intel formalizes Thunderbolt 2, promises products this year

While Intel gave us the technical rundown on its next iteration of Thunderbolt two months earlier , it’s now announced that it will officially be known as the not-particularly-original Thunderbolt 2. Promising 20 Gbps throughput and support for 4K video, Intel is now vowing to bring the port to market sometime this year. For a reminder, we’ve added the company’s NAB demo after the break. Filed under: Peripherals , Intel Comments Source: Intel Thunderbolt Blog

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Intel formalizes Thunderbolt 2, promises products this year

Samsung wins ITC ban of AT&T compatible iPhones and iPads due to patent infringement

Samsung got a big win in the International Trade Commission today, as the ITC handed down a final ruling finding that several models of AT&T-compatible iPhones and iPads infringe a Samsung patent, and issued an exclusion order preventing them from being imported, sold or distributed in the US. This final ruling comes months after an ALJ determined that Apple did not infringe any of Samsung’s IP, but clearly, the commission felt differently upon its review. This final determination holds that AT&T models of the iPhone 4, 3GS and 3G, plus AT&T iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G models infringe four claims of Samsung’s patent number 7,706,348 for encoding mobile communications. The ITC reversed the ALJ’s ruling in part based upon modified construction of several key terms in the claims at issue, but upheld the prior decision regarding the other three patents Samsung asserted in the action. So, what does this mean for Apple? Not a tremendous amount, truthfully, as the newly banned devices are no longer Cupertino’s standard bearers and account for little of massive profits . Plus, Apple will, no doubt appeal the decision in court. Still, Samsung’s bound to feel pretty good about the victory, and every little bit helps in its quest to remain atop the smartphone heap , right? Filed under: Apple , Samsung Comments Via: Reuters Tech (Twitter) Source: ITC [PDF]

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Samsung wins ITC ban of AT&T compatible iPhones and iPads due to patent infringement

Google buys Swedish wind farm’s entire output to power Finnish data center

Google has just secured the services of an entire 72MW wind farm in Maevaara, Sweden for the next ten years to keep its Finnish data center humming, according to the official blog. It brokered the deal through German insurer Allianz, which purchased the farm and will begin selling all the electricity it produces to Mountain View by 2015. The move is part of Google’s quest to remain carbon neutral, and is along similar lines to a recent deal which saw the search giant purchase 48MW of energy from a wind farm in Oklahoma. The news follows Apple’s announcement that it gets 75 percent of its power from renewable sources — showing the arch-foes can at least agree on something . Filed under: Misc , Internet , Google Comments Source: Google

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Google buys Swedish wind farm’s entire output to power Finnish data center

Rock Band creators team up with Disney for next-gen in ‘Fantasia: Music Evolved,’ headed to Xbox One / 360 in 2014

The tattoo-laden, musically-inclined game developers behind Frequency , Amplitude , Guitar Hero , Rock Band and Dance Central are taking on Disney’s Fantasia , this morning announcing next-gen Kinect game Fantasia: Music Evolved . Like its last game franchise, Harmonix is keeping exclusive to Microsoft game consoles with Kinect — the game is planned for launch some time in 2014 on both Xbox One and Xbox 360. Fantasia: Music Evolved — which we’re assuming must feature Master Chief somewhere given the naming convention and Microsoft exclusivity — aims to turn gamers into aspiring orchestra conductors. Er … sort of . The game is played by using both your arms to synchronously gesture in a variety of directions, with two on-screen icons indicating how to place your arms and which direction you’ll be gesturing toward. Ostensibly, the game asks players to conduct various pop songs (Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out of Heaven” and Queens’ “Bohemian Rhapsody,” among others), occasionally punctuated with a push, depth-wise, for various auditory flairs (among other things). You are the sorcerer’s apprentice, conducting the heavens (as it were). Moreover, the songs get remixed as you go along, with players choosing one of four musical styles to introduce dynamically as the track continues to play in the background. If it sounds overwhelming, that’s because it is. Gallery: Fantasia: Music Evolved Filed under: Gaming , Software , HD , Microsoft Comments

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Rock Band creators team up with Disney for next-gen in ‘Fantasia: Music Evolved,’ headed to Xbox One / 360 in 2014

NASA creates eye-popping 160-megapixel image of our two nearest galaxies (video)

NASA is determined to bring the final frontier closer than ever — or at least a small, photographic slice of it. Using NASA’s Swift satellite, astrophysicists at Goddard Space Flight Center and Pennsylvania State University were able to create a stunningly detailed survey of the two galaxies closest to us: the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. The 160-megapixel image was painstakingly stitched together using thousands of smaller photographs captured with Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. Rendering the galaxies in UV wavelengths allows researchers to study details unseen in visible light images, like individual stars surrounding the Tarantula Nebula in the LMC (the large pink cluster in the photo above). This high-res mosaic provides ample opportunity to study the life cycles of stars, from birth to death, in detail astrophysicists could previously only dream about. Fancy a tour? Check out the video after the break — or journey on past the source link to download the 457MB TIFF. Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Source: NASA

ASUS ROG reveals ‘the ultimate gaming machine’, the Poseidon Formula One

ASUS cannot get enough of Computex, and today its PC gaming arm is rolling out some high powered new kit. This is the Poseidon Formula 1, housing the apex of ROG’s gaming hardware know-how and brandishing its new Poseidon GTX 700 series GPU. It pairs NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 700 graphics series with a hybrid cooling system, with ASUS’ CoolTech combing blower and axial fans into one design, forcing air over the heatsink in multiple directions. Augmenting this is a liquid cooling system that ROG promises can reduce operating temperatures by up to 31 degrees Celsius, likely ensuring some impressive overclocking feats . The system is built upon ROG’s new Maximus VI motherboard that packs even more thermal cooling assistance, as well as the company’s SupremeFX audio card which will give gamers 120dB headphone output with a 600 Ohm headphone amplifier to improve volume and clarity. If that didn’t quite satisfy your thirst for specs, check out the slide show below and the press release after the break. Richard Lai contributed to this report. Gallery: ASUS ROG Poseidon GFX and Formula 1 Filed under: Desktops , Gaming , ASUS Comments

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ASUS ROG reveals ‘the ultimate gaming machine’, the Poseidon Formula One

Feedly promises raft of new features, integration with Reeder and other apps

Now that Feedly has taken in more than 500,000 Google Reader refugees , it’s unveiled a community-driven feature roadmap that’ll guide it for the rest of the year. Sitting atop the list is speed, which the team says will be boosted by fresh hardware and the help of new hires. Windows 8 and Windows Phone support, access to Feedly via the web without a plugin, searching within a user’s feeds and refined group sharing are coming down the pipeline as well. Naturally, a raft of bug fixes round out the planned updates. The outfit also revealed that Reeder, Press, Nextgen Reader, Newsify and gReader will sport Feedly integration before Mountain View’s service retires on July 1st . Word of Google Reader’s demise may have caused anguish , but it looks like suitable alternatives are beginning to flourish. Filed under: Software , Mobile Comments Source: Feedly

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Feedly promises raft of new features, integration with Reeder and other apps

Ken May

Tag: the-end