| Dark Souls 2 Bursts Onto PC With Brand New Trailer Posted: 15 Jan 2014 04:41 PM PST  Hell looks a whole lot prettier this time around
Dark Souls is universally known as one of the most frustrating PC games out there, with grueling dungeons, frustrating enemies, and plenty of gory encounters. For that, it's loved by a hefty slice of the gaming community, especially PC players. The PC port of Dark Souls was a bit messy, but developers are doing their best to avoid a similar situation for its sequel, Dark Souls II, noting that the successor to Capcom's original game was "developed for PC from the beginning." Finally, there's a trailer to accompany these claims, spotlighting some of the baddies, environments, and fearsome setpieces you'll be seeing when Dark Souls II finally creeps onto your gaming PC some time after its official console release on March 14th. There's not too much to savor in the trailer, but it's definitely enough to whet your whistle if you enjoyed the first game. Check out the trailer and let us know what you think! |
| Top 7 Google Successes and Failures Posted: 15 Jan 2014 04:40 PM PST 
The Good, the Bad, the Google With a stock price of $1,149 at the time of this posting, it's safe to say that Google has been on a roll lately. However, having said that, the company has had its fair share of misfires. With Google recently purchasing Nest for a massive 3.2 billion dollars, quite the audacious move, we couldn't help but reflect on the company's greatest triumphs and tribulations over the years. Below you will first see a listing of Google's seven greatest successes and failures. Let us know if you agree with our list in the comments section. |
| NSA Uses Radio Waves to Spy on Offline PCs Posted: 15 Jan 2014 11:25 AM PST  You can run but you can't hide
Surely by disconnecting your PC from the Internet and bashing your cable modem with a hammer you'll be safe from the prying eyes of the National Security Agency (NSA), right? Wrong. Like a bad sci-fi movie that keeps unveiling unlikely technologies, it's now being reported that the NSA has been using radio waves to tap into offline PCs since at least 2008. According a report in The New York Times, the NSA installed software on nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the U.S. to spy on those machines. Most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, but the NSA also utilizes a secret technology that allows the organization to alter data in computers even when they're not connected to the internet. This is where the radio waves come in. The NSA has been listening in on a covert channel of radio waves transmitted from small PCBs and USB cards that are stealthily installed into PCs. Going with the sci-fi movie them, these radio waves are sometimes recorded by relay stations no bigger than a briefcases, which the NSA can install miles away from the target PC, NYT says. The NSA considers this an "active defense" against cyberattacks, though it's not necessarily easy to implement. Most of the time this sort of thing requires physically installing radio frequency hardware into a target PC, which is usually performed by a spy or manufacturer. To date, the program (codenamed Quantum) has been successful in inserting radio frequency spying software into Russian military networks and systems used by the Mexican police and drug cartels, trade institutions inside the EU, and anti-terrorist partners. NYT says there's no evidence that the NSA has used this technology inside the U.S., while an agency spokeswoman added that these activities are "focused and specifically deployed against -- and only against -- valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements." Image Credit: Flickr (Moondusty) Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Tight DRAM Supply Could Lead to Higher Prices in 2014 Posted: 15 Jan 2014 10:31 AM PST  Hynix is still trying to recover from a fire at one of its fabs
The DRAM market pretty much bottomed out a few years ago and has never fully recovered, though we've seen prices slowly rise from time to time. In most cases we're only talking about a few dollars difference for a memory kit, which isn't so bad except that it adds up over time. That trend is likely to continue throughout 2014 as SK Hynix struggles to fully resume wafer production at a fab that suffered fire damage in China. Last September, Hynix tried to downplay the extent of damage and said that things appeared worse in pictures than they really were. "Currently, there is no material damage to the fab equipment in the clean room, thus we expect to resume operations in a short time period so that overall production and supply volume would not be materially affected," a representative for Hynix said in a statement at the time. Citing industry sources, Digitimes says Hynix is having a more difficult time getting back to normal output levels than it anticipated. Hynix has resumed full operations at the fab that was damaged by the fire, but yield rates have been worse than expected, causing some PC vendors to reject shipments. That single fab accounts for almost half of the 260,000 DRAM wafers Hynix produces each month, which is equal to 10 percent of the world's DRAM wafer production. That being the case, DRAM production for PCs is expected to remain tight through all of 2014, which could lead to higher priced memory kits. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Chrome Browser Update Tattles on Noisy Tabs Posted: 15 Jan 2014 09:36 AM PST  Update Chrome to find out which tab is making all that racket
If you consider yourself a power surfer, then it's probably not uncommon for you to have a dozen or so tabs open at any given time. Provided you have enough system RAM to handle that kind of load, there's nothing inherently wrong with loading up a bunch of tabs, but it sure can be annoying one of them starts playing music or an ad out of the blue. One way to track down the culprit is by reloading each tab one-by-one until the noise cuts out -- BAM, there's your culprit. Or you can run the latest version of Chrome (version 32) and see at a glance which tab is blaring through your speakers. Starting with Chrome 32, there are three new icons that might appear in your tabs. One is an audio icon to let you know that it's playing audio, and the other two reveal which websites are accessing your webcam or are being cast to your television. You'll find the icon on the right side of the tab next to the X. In addition to the icon, which is even visible when your tabs are squished, a message will appear when you hover your mouse cursor over a tab that's performing one of the three above mentioned actions. For example, it might say, "This tab is playing audio." If Chrome hasn't yet updated to the newest release, you can force its hand by hitting up the Preferences button and selecting "About Google Chrome." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Federal Judge Refuses to Reduce Marvell's $1.17 Billion Patent Infringement Fine Posted: 15 Jan 2014 08:36 AM PST  Marvell hoped to have its $1.17 billion fine cut in half
U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer in Pittsburgh listened to Marvell argue why a jury verdict against the company to the tune of $1.17 billion should be cut in half, but was ultimately unmoved by the company's reasoning. The massive fine is to be paid to Carnegie Mellon University, which is also located in Pittsburgh, for infringing on two hard disk drive (HDD) patents issued in 2001 and 2002. The original verdict dates back to December 2012 and is the third-largest U.S. patent litigation award since 1995, Reuters reports. Marvell had sought to overturn or at least reduce the damages award based on its claim that Carnegie Mellon had knowledge of the infringing patents six years before filing the lawsuit in 2009. Carnegie Mellon responded to Marvell's claims by saying that at best, it only heard "rumors" or "suspicions" that its patents were being infringed, therefore the delay in suing Marvell was reasonable. The two patents have to do with how accurately HDD circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks. Even though Marvell began removing the technology from its chips after the verdict, infringing sales are likely to continue throughout 2014, Judge Fischer said in her decision. Furthermore, Fischer said that the subject of issuing even more penalties "will be determined in a later decision." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: MSI N660 GeForce GTX 660, Intel Core i5 4670K, and More! Posted: 15 Jan 2014 06:10 AM PST |
