Items tagged with Misc
First, Valve announced SteamOS; then they announced the Steam Machines beta project, which in due time will bring a Valve-made gaming device as well as a host of others; and the third and final announcement of the week is the Steam Controller, which Valve bills as a “different kind of gamepad”. As part of Valve’s major play...
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Intel is looking for help in its endeavor to bring forth an Internet-based TV service that would ostensibly challenge the status quo in the industry. The chipmaker has been working on an “OnCue” brand with some 300 employees under the leadership of Erik Huggers, but things have only progressed so far; the...
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Whatever you may think about Steve Ballmer and his tenure in the big chair at Microsoft, you have to admit that the man’s good for a show. At his final companywide meeting before he retires in August, which took place in Seattle’s KeyArena, Ballmer reportedly brought them to their feet during his tearful...
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In celebration of its 15th birthday, Google announced that it has overhauled its search algorithm. The new tool is called Hummingbird, and its chief feature is conversational search; in other words, when you make a search query, instead of merely looking at keywords and popping out results that seem to match them the...
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Bill Gates was and is a genius, and his brilliance and leadership brought to life the juggernaut that is Microsoft, but of course, he and his company made some missteps along the way. (And continue to do so.) Some of them were large, some were tiny, but something that millions of users had to live with every day was...
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Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V has been an unmitigated success, generating $800 million in sales on its first day and clearing a cool billion in three, but it’s apparently not without its problems. Well, “problem”, singular. Multiple users have complained that after upgrading a vehicle or completing a mission and...
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Valve is doing that thing it does where it trickles out a series of big announcements over the course of a week, and these announcements promise to be very big indeed. The first of a trio from Valve is that the company is producing SteamOS, a free, Linux-based, standalone operating system that will run on “living room machines”....
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Friday was the day that Apple made a software update (version 6.0) available to its Apple TV customers, but over the weekend users reported that installing the update was causing a host of problems, from networking issues to actually bricking Apple TVs. In response, it appears that Apple has pulled the update, but the...
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Those commercials for the Dish Network Hopper, the monster whole-home DVR service that lets users record up to 6 channels simultaneously and store up to 2,000 hours of content, make the whole thing seem too good to be true. In reality, it’s not, but the major networks certainly feel like it should be. Multiple...
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Ultimaker is releasing its latest 3D printer, the Ultimaker 2, and the new machine features significant redesigns from the first iteration of the Ultimaker. The company says that the new version is more accurate, more efficient, and it’s even quieter at 49dB. Specifically, the Ultimaker 2 has a new CNC-milled...
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MakerBot debuted its Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner, an intriguing machine that costs $1,400, but an upstart competitor is working on a device called the Rubicon 3D Scanner that will cost a mere $200. The Rubicon uses a webcam (which is not actually included with the scanner) that takes a series of photos with the...
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There’s a bit of a race to roll out fleets of cars that can either drive themselves with minimal input from a human driver or are completely autonomous, and Tesla is a company that believes it can make that a reality in 3 years. Although allowing that a fully autonomous car was not likely anytime soon, Tesla CEO...
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We love a good gameplay trailer around here, and the latest one from EA showing off Battlefield 4’s multiplayer play looks fantastic. We already saw a lengthy (17 minutes) demo earlier this year that gave us a look at the fluid and detailed visuals as well as the storyline with a mix of scripted scenes and...
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Yep, a USB condom. That term is mostly a dose of marketing brilliance, which is to say that grabs your attention while also serving as an apt description of the product. A little company called int3.cc has developed a product—a USB condom—that blocks the data pins in your USB device while leaving the power pins free. Thus,...
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We feel like we’ve said it recently, but this has been a good year for virtual reality and gaming. For example, the Oculus Rift is rolling, and we’ve seen additional innovations from the likes of Omni, with its omni-directional treadmill and Atlas, a project designed to use Oculus Rift to turn...
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Anything that helps those of all ages learn a new skill without spending a lot of cash is great; anything that helps people learn a skill such as coding is extraordinary. Such is Coder, a project developed by a small group of Googlers that offers a simple way to turn a Raspberry Pi into a little web server and also build apps on it, within...
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If you’ve read this site even casually lately, you know that crowdfunding is here in force. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo offer entrepreneurs, startups, and otherwise unfunded techies with a prototype and a dream the chance to engage the world and excite backers to front some money for their projects. It’s a powerful, grassroots...
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Back in April, botObjects sent word that it was developing a full-color 3D printer called the ProDesk3D, a device that would use a 5-color PLA cartridge to print mulitcolored items and offer a huge array of color options. At the time, there wasn’t apparently a working prototype, and preorders weren’t even available for two months...
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After a drawn-out struggle that saw billionaire investor Carl Icahn fight against it (a struggle he eventually gave up on earlier this week), Michael Dell will buy out Dell for $24.9 billion. The company’s founder has now successfully taken his company private again. The deal will be for $13.75 per share with a...
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When Apple announced its new iPhones and produced a gold-colored version of the iPhone 5S, We were pretty sure we weren’t the only ones who cringed. Gold? Really? We’re going to have to see people walking around with gold-colored iPhones, pretending to be rich and classy from now on? (It’s a virtual certainty, for instance,...
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The maker space has seen its share of modular hardware projects, to be sure, (including ones pertaining to handsets), but one Dave Hakkens is looking to push things even further with Phonebloks, which is essentially a set of modules that create a complete smartphone when combined. The idea is that a handset can be...
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It’s just a publicity stunt, but like any great publicity stunt, this one is worth buying into: Google used Street View to map out the Moto X factory in Texas, offering a long look at the facility in lovely, full screen glory. The plant, which officially launched yesterday, promises that it can crank out up to...
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