| Everything We Know About Windows 10 Posted: 21 Jan 2015 09:05 PM PST  Free, Surface Hub, Cortana and Hololens
UPDATE: We've updated the story to include more info on Microsoft's PC gaming initiative and talked more about the tweaks to Windows 10. Microsoft held a Windows 10 press conference today and revealed a massive amount of details from the upcoming OS and much more. After many rumors, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 will be free to Windows 8, 7, and Windows Phone users...for the first year, at least. The company views it as an incentive for users to quickly jump on board to the Windows 10 platform. Microsoft believes this will solve one of its biggest OS issues for developers, and that is OS fragmentation. Beyond the initial year, however, Microsoft hasn't revealed any pricing details for how much the OS will cost. Another rumor that Microsoft confirmed is that Windows 10 will support Cortana, which the company is pitching as the OS's personal digital assistant. In short, the character Cortana is based off the character from the Halo games and is Microsoft's answer to Apple's Siri. With Cortana, Microsoft is saying "she" is really tailored for the PC experience and you will be able to use voice commands to search for locally stored files or files on your One Drive account. These file types will include documents, pictures, music, and more. In the live demo that Microsoft gave on stage, Cortana was able to provide information on the weather, flight information, and more. What's quite impressive about Cortana is that her voice sounds extremely realistic, much more so than either Apple's or Google's equivalents. Microsoft is also saying that Cortana will be able to get smarter and learn about you. For instance, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore asked her what she thinks the Super Bowl score will be. Knowing that Joe is from Seattle, she jokingly said that the Seattle Seahawks would win in dominating fashion. If you're a little creeped out by this, you'll be able to clear some of her history about you. She will also be able to tell you more about any particular web page you're browsing and you'll be able to right-click on words to get definitions and more. 
To go along with Cortana, Microsoft is also creating a new browser. Codenamed Project Spartan, Microsoft's new browser will use a new rendering engine and will support note taking with either a stylus or a person's finger. Project Spartan will also allow you to click on words/phrases and allow you to leave comments. You'll then be able to share these pages with your comments on them on the various social media outlets. Project Spartan will also allow you to save web pages to view offline, much like the Get Pocket app. Microsoft also wants to push gaming with Windows 10. "We will treat gaming on Windows 10 with as much passion as on Xbox One," said Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox division. In addition to supporting DirectX 12, which the company vaguely stated will run up to 50% faster than DX11 equivalents, the company also announced that users will be able to stream Xbox One games to any Windows 10 PC over a local network. This includes Windows 10 tablets/convertibles. Currently the build that the company is using only supports 30fps/720p streaming, but Microsoft hopes to up that to 60fps/1080p by the time Windows 10 officially releases. 
Microsoft also revealed the Xbox app which will allow you to capture and record the last 30 seconds of gameplay in any PC game, much like Nvidia's ShadowPlay feature. This includes games from Steam, Uplay or Origin. In addition, you'll also be able to cut and trim the beginning and ends of clips and share them with your Xbox Live friends on the Xbox app. When we asked Microsoft if the company plans on integrating the Xbox friends list with Steam's friends library, the company said it certainly wasn't against it and said it was in talks with Valve. Currently the software is only recording the last 30 seconds of gameplay, but when we asked the company if it was going to open that up to allow you to record more, the company said that could certainly be a possibility later on down the road. Microsoft also announced that Fable Legends would no longer be an Xbox exclusive and will come to PCs. Furthermore, PC gamers and Xbox One owners will be able to play together online. This is a start of a strategy in which Microsoft envisions both platforms will begin to play with each other. The company also confirmed that Xbox achievements will also be making their way to PC titles as well. Another sector that Microsoft said it was interested in improving in the PC gaming space pertains to battery life. With gaming laptops becoming more popular, Microsoft says it's working on optimizing the OS for gaming battery life. 
Beyond the gaming stuff, Microsoft also stated that the OS would have many other improvements. The OS will work across a wide variety of devices from phones, tablets, to desktops and would even eventually come to the Xbox One in some form. Power desktop users worrying that their OS will be compromised with a mobile OS (ala Metro), needn't worry because the Start button is indeed back. There is, however, a tablet mode where the start button opens up and shows many more touch-friendly icons, but unlike Metro which was quite in-your-face, users can ignore this altogether if they so desired. Other improvements include the melding of the control panel and settings menus. The company said looking at the data, users were confused by which tool did what. One of the biggest issues with current versions of Windows is proper 4K scaling. Everything either looks too tiny or certain programs aren't optimized for the resolution and look really blurry. Microsoft said it is working hard to solve this issue both internally and with third party developers. Considering that 4K seems to be a mere stepping stone for UHD panels at this point, Microsoft also told us that Windows 10 will support 8K. The company's various software suites will be getting updates as well. Outlook will be getting Microsoft's popular ribbon tool allowing you to properly compose and format letters from your email client. Power Point will support hardware acceleration for fancier transitions. Microsoft is also introducing a new photo organizing tool which will collect your images and categorize them by location and time. Furthermore, this photo tool can also enhance images automatically to remove red eyes and duplicate images. Another announcement Microsoft made was its Surface Hub, which is a Windows 10 PC integrated into an 80-inch 4K TV with a mic, cameras, and touch screen. You will be able to use a stylus to draw on PowerPoint presentations, etc. with the Surface Hub. The Hub is being designed for enterprise in mind and will cater towards professionals who use Skype video conferencing. Microsoft's last announcement was arguably the most exciting: Hololens. Many suspected that Microsoft would release a head-mounted display for VR to compete with Oculus Rift/Project Morpheus, however the company opted to go the augmented reality route. Hololens is a head-mounted display, but unlike VR headsets, the Hololens grants you full vision of your surrounding with a clear glass overlay in front of your eyes. In the glass, you'll have a video feed that beams on to it in real time. The end result is you looking at virtual objects lying around your real living room space. Furthermore, you'll be able to use the company's new HoloStudio program to easily build 3D models with your hands. Microsoft is calling it the best print preview for 3D printing out there. 
We got a chance to try the headset and can say we walked away incredibly impressed. Expect a more detailed write-up on it soon. There's still a lot that we don't know. For instance, we don't know how it will interact with Windows 10 PCs considering it is it's own dedicated, wireless device. We will say that we were pleasantly surprised by it and like VR, it has the potential to be transformative if it's pulled off right. While no release date was given, Microsoft told us that it would come out during the Windows 10 launch timeframe. When is Windows 10 releasing? The company says it is aiming for this year. When we asked them if it would be coming out during Q4, Microsoft said it hopes to release before then, but gave no concrete date or time frame. What did you think of Microsoft's various announcements? Let us know in the comments below. |
| How to Make Your Own GIFs Posted: 21 Jan 2015 12:37 PM PST  Make your own GIFs with Photoshop, or a free app
GIFs (or JIFs, depending on who you ask) are the bread and butter of a good Internet conversation these days. While it's easy to find reaction GIFs with a simple Google search, sometimes it's impossible to find that exact GIF you want. With this in mind, here are two simple ways to make your own animated images. Step 1: Our first step, of course, will be to download the video clip you want to make into a GIF. One of the simplest solutions is downloading clips using Download YouTube Extension for Firefox. Alternatively, users could also use a web tool like KeepVid. 
Step 2: Next, you'll want to cut your clip to length to make it easier to work with and convert.
I recommend Free Video Cutter for a simple and free solution. 
Step 3: Now that we've got all that done, its time to actually make GIFs. We'll start with launching Photoshop CC, our GIF creator of choice, and load the clip. Do this by going to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers. 
Step 4: Photoshop will prompt you with a dialog box. If you haven't already cut the clip to length, you can do so here, too. Additionally, users can limit the number of frames Photoshop uses to create a GIF to lower the file size, but at the cost of a choppier animation. 
Step 5: After a bit, your video should be split into multiple layers. Next, we'll select File > Save for web. 
Step 6: There are multiple settings in this new window. Here is where you can cut your file size (it should be below 2MB) by tweaking these following three settings. - Dimensions: The size of your GIF just as it is with still images. Lowering this will dramatically reduce the size of the file. Unless you need a 1080p GIF, this should be your first stop.
- Dither: Effectively, this setting changes image quality. The higher the number, the better your GIF will look, and with it a bigger file size as well.
- Lossy: This pretty much sacrifices image quality in favor of smaller file size. Balance is the key!
Step 7: Now just hit save and you're done! The simpler (and free!) route OK, not all of us have Photoshop or want to use such a complicated image editor. Luckily for everyone, there's a simpler, free solution called the Giffing Tool. Download, install, and start the app. 
Step 1: Upon opening the Giffing Tool, you'll find a multitude of ways to record video. You can also open GIFs to edit them. We'll stick to simply recording YouTube clips for now. Click the drop-down next to New and select YouTube 640 x 350. Step 2: This option will give you a box to hover over your video, and can record up to 10 seconds of footage. 
Step 3: Once that's done, a new edit window will appear with your recorded footage. The first thing you'll want to do here is cut your GIF to length by selecting and dragging the tabs on either side of the blue time bar. 
Step 4: After that, it's just a matter of reducing the image size and quality to ensure your file isn't too large. Of course, you can get as in-depth as you'd like by adding captions, effects, or cropping the GIF more. Step 5: Once you're done, simply save and keep on giffing. 
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| Microsoft to Offer Windows 10 as Free Upgrade to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 Users Posted: 21 Jan 2015 10:31 AM PST  Can't beat the price!
Stop whatever it is you're doing and make a fist. Make sure there isn't a living creature within arm's length, and when the coast is clear, pump your fist in the air in celebration. What are we celebrating? The fact that Microsoft today confirmed plans to make Windows 10 a free upgrade for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 users! This is exactly the type of announcement we were hoping for, but didn't really think would happen. Yes, there were rumors that Windows 9 would be a free upgrade, most of which suggested the free upgrade would apply to Windows 8/8.1 only. And then Microsoft did something nobody saw coming -- it skipped over Windows 9 and announced Windows 10, giving itself an out to the rumors that Windows 9 would be free. Shenanigans, we thought. And we were wrong. Microsoft is holding a press event today in which it's revealing all kinds of details about Windows 10 and related hardware, including confirmation that Cortana is headed to the desktop. We'll have plenty of coverage once things wrap up, but in the meantime, we wanted to give you heads up about Windows 10. This is a bold move by Microsoft, and of course a welcome one by consumers. The free upgrade will be available for the first year, giving consumers plenty of time to make the transition. It should also mean that Windows 10's market share will eclipse that of Windows 8/8.1 in short order. Stay tuned folks, we'll have more to come! Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Corsair HX Series 750W PSU, Asus Radeon R9 290 Graphics Card, and More! Posted: 21 Jan 2015 10:11 AM PST |
| Theme Hospital Now Free on Origin for a Limited Time Posted: 21 Jan 2015 09:57 AM PST  The return of a classic
Patience is not only a virtue, it can save you cash as well. For example, if you held off on purchasing Theme Hospital when it came out in early 1997 in hopes that the price would come down, you can stop waiting -- Electronic Arts is giving Theme Hospital (Standard Edition) away for free via Origin, available for a limited time. You can then pocket the $5 you saved and apply it towards your health insurance deductible the next time you need to visit the doctor. In case you missed it the first time around, Theme Hospital is a business simulation game, though not nearly as serious as that might sound. "The world of Theme Hospital is home to dozens of goofy, fictional diseases. Some humans are afflicted with Bloaty Head, causing their noggins to triple in size; others suffer from King Complex, a psychological disorder that infects its victims with the irresistible desire to impersonate Elvis Presley. All of these sick people need help – that's where you come in," the game's description reads. It's your job to plan and create a facility for all these patients, deciding on how many rooms are needed, as well as determine diagnosis and treatment operations. You'll have to hire staff members -- doctors, nurses, receptionists, and handymen -- and keep them happy. If that sounds like a good time, you can grab the game here. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD Posts $364 Million Net Loss, Looks to Carrizo to Turn Things Around Posted: 21 Jan 2015 09:41 AM PST  Tough quarter for AMD
Hoping for a strong finish to the year, AMD instead reported revenue of $1.24 billion in the fourth quarter, down 13 percent sequentially and 22 percent year-over-year. The Sunnyvale chip designer also reported an operating loss of $330 million and a net loss of $364 million, or $0.47 per share for the quarter, leading to a net loss for the year of $403 million, or $0.53 per share. "We made progress diversifying our business, ramping design wins and improving our balance sheet this past year despite challenges in our PC business," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "Annual Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue increased over 50% as customer demand for products powered by our high-performance compute and rich visualization solutions was strong. We continue to address channel headwinds in the Computing and Graphics segment and are taking steps to return it to a healthy trajectory beginning in the second quarter of 2015." Revenue for the full year was actually up 4 percent to $551 billion, though the figure that stings is the $403 million net loss, compared with an $83 million loss reported in 2013. It didn't help that AMD saw a 15 percent sequential and 16 percent year-over-year loss in its Computing and Graphics segment. Going into 2015, AMD will look to turn things around with Carrizo and Carrizo-L, which are set to debut in the first half of next year. However, the impact of those new APUs won't be felt until later in the year -- AMD expects revenue to decline 15 percent, plus or minus 3 percent, in the first quarter of 2015. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Pirate Bay May Return to Action in 10 Days Posted: 21 Jan 2015 09:07 AM PST  Signs point to The Pirate Bay setting sail once again
After being raided by Swedish authorities and ultimately shut down, it always seemed like a foregone conclusion that The Pirate Bay (TPB) would return to form, it was just a matter of when. After all, this isn't the first time the BitTorrent site has navigated rocky waters and seemingly been sunk for good, only to come back like Davy Jones. And so it goes again, there are plenty of signs that TPB will return to action in another 10 days. TPB's website has mostly returned to form, but with grayed out buttons and features. However, at the top of the page is a countdown timer with 10 days remaining, while at the bottom of the page, TPB's galleon sails across the screen from right to left towards an island image named welcomehome.png. According to TorrentFreak, the site is still based at Trabia, the Republic of Moldova's largest data center. The company behind the site's hosting put out a message saying that while it supports freedom of speech and barrier-free Internet usage, it also has a "strict zero-tolerance abuse policy" and that its "clients have to obey national and intentional laws." So, what's TPB's game plan? Keep on sailing. In the same breath, the hosting company also left the door open to inaction. "The problem here is that the technology used, so called 'magnet links', is not violating the right of third parties directly. [There] is no copyright infringement originating from websites such as 'thepiratebay.se' which makes it a very complex case which is open for a lot of interpretation and discussions. We stand behind all out clients as long as they use our services for a legal purpose," Trabia said. In other words, it appears Trabia is trying to dance on both sides of the line. How that plays out for them and TPB is something we'll find out in another 10 days or so. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Mouse-Box Concept is a PC Inside a Mouse Posted: 21 Jan 2015 08:28 AM PST  There's a PC in the belly of this rodent
Forget about building a better mouse trap, what about a better mouse? Or to take it a step further, a mouse that doubles as a full fledged PC? While not yet a shipping product, the idea of integrating an entire PC into a mouse has been achieved -- Meet the Mouse-Box, a mouse and computer rolled into one. You can use it as a standard mouse or as a working PC (just add a monitor), or both. Crammed inside and around this rodent is quad-core ARM Cortex processor clocked at 1.4GHz, 128GB of flash storage, 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity, two USB 3.0 ports, and micro-HDMI output. It's also equipped with an accelerometer and gyroscope. The Mouse-Box charges wirelessly on an inductive charging pad that also serves double duty as a standard mouse pad. As previously stated, you can hook it up to your laptop or desktop and use it as a typical mouse, or tap into its guts and use it as a PC. You can also take advantage of both functions at the same time -- just switch the input, the Mouse-Box team explains in a video. It's an interesting concept, though it hasn't evolved beyond the prototype stage at this point. At present, the Mouse-Box team is reaching out to firms to help it mass produce the device, which also means that the specs could change if and when it reaches retail. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Acer's Tough and Tumble Chromebook C910 and C740 Laptops Can Take a Schoolyard Beating Posted: 21 Jan 2015 05:41 AM PST  Durable design for students
Acer today added to its Chromebook family with the launch of two new models, the 15.6-inch Acer Chromebook C910 and 11.6-inch Acer Chromebook C740. Though they differ in size, both new Chromebooks feature durable design qualities that make them better suited for school environments. It starts with using reinforced covers that can withstand up to 60kg of force, Acer says. The C910 and C740 also have corners that can tolerate drops from up to 45cm (17.7 inches) without sustaining damage, along with hinges that have been reinforced to endure more twisting and stress. Acer went a bit further on the C740 model under the assumption that it "will be frequently moved thanks to its compact size" and designed it with extended metal hinges that keep it more rigid. The thought process there is that students might be apt to pick up the C740 by its display and cram it into their backpacks. As for specs, the C910 brings a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) IPS display to the Chromebook party, while the C740 rocks an HD (1366x768) panel, an option that's also available on the C910 to "meet the budgets of schools." Both will be available with a 5th Generation Intel Core i3 5005U or Intel Celeron 3205U processor, 4GB of RAM, 16GB or 32GB SSD, 802.11nac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, microSD card reader, HDMI output, and of course Chrome OS. The C910 and C740 will be available next month starting at $300 and $260, respectively. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
