General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Nvidia CEO: $299 Tegra 3 Tablet to Become Reality in Six Months

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 03:37 PM PST

So far what is the biggest threat to the iPad's largely unchallenged supremacy in the tablet market? The answer has certainly got to be Amazon's Kindle Fire, which sports a very enticing $200 price tag. Even though the Kindle Fire is probably the only non-iPad tablet to have generated iPad-like buzz, it's not the only affordable tablet on the market. The ranks of sub-$300 tablets are constantly swelling. And if NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is right, soon there will be a number of Tegra 3 tablets in this price range.

But exactly how soon, you ask? Well, in a couple of quarters according to Huang. He made this claim while talking to media persons in New York on Friday. Apparently, he was in a mood to flaunt his predictive faculties. Huang foresees a "shocking" rate of improvement in mobile chips and believes a five-fold annual increase in the power and efficiency of mobile chips is in the realm of possibility.

According to the NVIDIA honcho, the biggest challenge facing Android tablet vendors in the U.S. is the fact that they have to sell their devices through retailers - unlike Apple which has its own stores. "Apple stores have an advantage over anything sold through Best Buy," he said. "Everything sold through Best Buy has to pay Best Buy a margin."

Microsoft Announces Security Essentials Beta Program

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 03:11 PM PST

Launched over two years back, Microsoft Security Essentials has established itself as one of the best free security apps out there. In this time, two versions of the free anti-virus have been released to mostly positive reviews. Our own reviews of MSE are a point in case. Now Microsoft is laying the groundwork for the release of the tool's next version.

The company has announced that the beta of the next version of MSE is now open for registration. If you wish to participate please hurry as Microsoft will only be accepting a limited number of applications for the beta.

"The number of users than can participate in the Beta is limited, so sign up today and we will notify you once the Beta is available for download," announced the Security Essentials team Friday. "We anticipate the Microsoft Security Essentials beta to be available to the general public by the end of the year."

The enhancements that will be part of the beta version are:

  • Enhanced protection through automatic malware remediation - The Beta will clean high-impact malware infections automatically, with no required user interaction.
  • Enhanced performance - The Beta includes many performance improvements to make sure your PC performance isn't negatively impacted.
  • Simplified UI - Simplified UI makes Microsoft Security Essentials Beta easier to use.
  • New and improved protection engine - The updated engine offers enhanced detection and cleanup capabilities.

 

Lawsuit Accuses Grooveshark of Using Own Workforce to Upload Pirated Music

Posted: 19 Nov 2011 06:44 AM PST

Grooveshark Employees with Wyclef JeanGrooveshark is no stranger to lawsuits having been sued countless times. But the latest lawsuit, even though it's from a familiar foe, seems to be a bit different. Universal Media group on Friday filed a fresh lawsuit against the online music streaming service, accusing it of running a massive music uploading effort internally. Hit the jump for more.

Hitherto, Grooveshark has been claiming that it is protected under DMCA's safe-harbor provisions (Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act), which limits the liability of online service providers as long as they adhere to certain guidelines. But that whole argument falls apart the moment someone is able to prove that Escape Media, Grooveshark's parent company, willfully infringes on a content owner's copyrights.

That is exactly what Universal is trying to do with this lawsuit. In fact, its accusations are very serious and rather damning. In its complaint, Universal alleges that Escape Media runs a massive internal music uploading effort directly overseen by the top brass.

"The business records of Escape Media Group, Grooveshark's parent company,] establish unequivocally that the sound recordings illegally copied by Escape's executives and employees, include thousands of well known sound recordings owned by UMG," reads the complaint filed by Universal in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

What's more, the label has accused Grooveshark's top management of themselves uploading thousands of songs. The complaint accuses Grooveshark's CEO Samuel Tarantino, senior vice president Paul Geller and VP of public relations Benjamin Westermann-Clark of uploading 1,791, 3,453 and 4,600 pirated songs, respectively.

For good measure, the complaint also cites comments made by an anonymous poster claiming to be a Grooveshark employee on the Digital Music News blog. Commenting on a blog post titled "King Crimson Can't Get Their Music Off of Grooveshark," this poster claimed that the staff was "assigned a predetermined amount of weekly uploads to the system and get a small extra bonus if we manage to go above that (not easy)."

The poster then detailed this alleged assignment system: "All search results are monitored and when something is tagged as 'not available', it get's [sic] queued up to our lists for upload. You have to visualize the database in two general sections: 'known' stuff and 'undiscovered/indie/underground'. The 'known' stuff is taken care internally by uploads. Only for the 'undiscovered' stuff are the users involved as explained in some posts above."

"Practically speaking, there is not much need for users to upload a major label album since we already take care of this on a daily basis," the anonymous poster further wrote.

Besides $150,000 per song (maximum available), the label wants the court to grant a permanent injunction against Grooveshark.

Image Credit: Grooveshark
Posted by Shri Krishna

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