General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

Adobe Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Photoshop

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 05:33 PM PST

Adobe PhotoshopTimeline and video released to commemorate the occasion

On February 19, 1990 a little program called Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released. Since then, there have been many versions of the image manipulation software and its popularity among graphics designers, artists, and creative minds has grown to the point that the word "Photoshop" is used as a verb. So to mark the occasion, Adobe has released a timeline and video celebrating Photoshop's 25th anniversary.

The timeline highlights release dates of various software versions, famous magazine or newspaper covers, and interesting tidbits such as when the first working human organ was 3D printed. Meanwhile, the video showcases a selection of beautiful Photoshop creations for the software that, over time, has evolved into a powerful application which offers a plethora of tools for anyone wishing to flex their creative muscles (check out our editorial on how to use Adobe Photoshop).

 

 

Unsurprisingly, the timeline also highlights when Adobe launched its subscription-only Creative Cloud service, doing away with the pay-once, use forever model. A decision that was an unpopular one for some consumers as the company has been looking for a way to grow its business at a faster pace. 

But in a digital age, one where there are plenty of free photo editing software to choose from, do you think that Photoshop will be able to compete with its CC service and stay around to photoshop pictures for another 25 years?

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Newegg Daily Deals: EVGA Supernova G2 850W PSU, Asus Z97-A Motherboard, and More!

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 10:54 AM PST

Evga Supernova 850Wnewegg logo

Top Deal:

Have you heard the one about a power supply that walked into a bar? Neither have we, though we have heard about PSUs going up in smoke. This is one of the areas where having a name brand counts (usually, anyway). If you're looking for a reliable PSU, check out today's top deal for an EVGA Supernova 850 G2 850W Power Supply for $125 with free shipping (normally $160; additional $30 mail-in-rebate). This is a modular PSU that's 80 Plus Gold Certified for efficiency. And if you bother with the rebate, the price drops below a Benjamin!

Other Deals:

Western Digital Blue 1TB 7200 RPM 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive for $50 with free shipping (normally $55 - use coupon code: [ESCANKX22])

Asus Z97-A LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard for $135 with free shipping (normally $145 - use coupon code: [EMCANKX83])

Western Digital Purple 2TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive for $85 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [0217GMLVER112])

Sapphire Dual-X Radeon R9 280 3GB Video Card for $180 with free shipping (normally $200; additional $20 Mail-in rebate)

Windows XP Holdouts Will Reportedly Pay Double for Microsoft Support

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 09:42 AM PST

XP BlissAnother nudge to get businesses to upgrade

Even the floppy disk would have to be impressed with how long Windows XP has been able to hold onto relevance. Sure, most of the world has moved on, but there are still a lot of Windows XP machines out there, especially in various enterprise sectors. Rather than upgrade, businesses can ink custom support agreements (CSAs) with Microsoft to continue receiving support. However, it's being reported that the cost of those Windows XP CSAs are about to double.

According to ComputerWorld and an anonymous licensing expert it spoke with, the price per PC for a Windows XP CSA will be $400 with a cap of $500,000 starting in April. Included as part of these CSAs are ongoing critical security updates for the retired OS, allowing businesses to continue using the aged OS.

Microsoft dropped the price to $200 with a cap of $250,000 last year just days before it retired Windows XP. The intent was to give businesses a little more time to get their ducks in a row and migrate to a newer OS. It's an annual program, and those who haven't made plans to upgrade will see their costs go back up when their contracts expire, the first of which will take place in a couple of months.

It will be interesting to see what effect that has on Windows XP's market share. As it stands, Windows XP is on nearly 21 percent of the world's PCs, according to Net Applications. That comes out to over 300 million computers, though StatCounter reports XP's market share at 12 percent.

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Toshiba Updates Kirabook with Broadwell

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 09:14 AM PST

Toshiba KirabookLaptop refresh sees an upgrade to Intel's Core i7-5500U CPU

Toshiba today announced that its premium Kirabook 13 i7S1 Touch Ultrabook is now rocking a 5th Generation Intel Core i7-5500U processor based on the Santa Clara chip maker's Broadwell architecture. The new part is a dual-core chip with four threads with a base frequency of 2.4GHz and turbo frequency of 3GHz. It also sports 4MB of cache, Intel HD Graphics 5500, and a 15W TDP.

Like the previous generation Kirabook, the upgraded model features a 13.3-inch WQHD (2560x1440) PixelPure touchscreen display, 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, 256GB mSATA solid state drive, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, HD webcam, stereo microphone, HDMI output with 4K capability, three USB 3.0 ports (one with Sleep and Charge), and Windows 8.1 Pro. Toshiba also tosses in the full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 12.

The Kirabook sports a luxury design with a magnesium-alloy body that weighs 2.91 pounds. We reviewed a similar spec'd version a couple of years ago and gave it a 9 verdict -- you can read that review here. Or if you'd rather not click, about the only thing we could ding it for was the price.

At the time of that review, it was going for $2,000. The upgraded model on Toshiba's website goes for $1,700, though you may be able to get it for less -- when tried to leave the website, Toshiba offered us a $75 discount in exchanging for receiving weekly email specials.

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YouTube to Implement Subscription Service for Ad-free Videos

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 06:55 AM PST

YouTube logoAd-free videos for a fee

Stop us if you have heard this one before. A person goes to YouTube in order to watch a 15-second clip of cats doing what cats do, only to watch a 30-second ad before that person can even watch the video. Funny, right? We didn't think so. However, it appears that YouTube is implementing a subscription service that will make its videos ad-free so that you can watch all of the cat videos you want without having to ponder life's mysteries as you wait for an ad to end.

According to CNBC, YouTube head of content and business operations Robert Kyncl briefly talked about the subscription service, aside from the one for Music Key, while at the Code/Media conference. While there, Kyncl revealed that the subscription service would be launching within a few months and the paid option would remove all ads from its videos. While no further details were forthcoming regarding price, he went on to say that YouTube has been "fine-tuning the experience." 

However, this isn't the first time that YouTube has explored the idea of a paid, ad-free service. Back in May 2013, a pilot program was launched by the company allowing individual content creators to charge a subscription fee that would give the consumer access to a particular channel of videos.

Would you be willing to pay a fee for ad-free videos on YouTube and how much do you think it will cost? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Lenovo Takes Heat for Installing Superfish Adware on Consumer Laptops

Posted: 19 Feb 2015 06:08 AM PST

Lenovo LaptopWorld's top PC maker installed software that left customers susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks

It's not too often that Lenovo gets dinged for making a bad decision. After all, Lenovo is the top supplier of PCs in the world, and it didn't get there through a series of mishaps. Nevertheless, Lenovo has come under fire for installing hidden software on its consumer laptop and desktop PCs that injects third-party ads on Google searches and websites. Even worse, Lenovo reportedly gave Superfish permission to issue its own security certificates, which allows it to hijack SSL/TLS connections to websites, also known as a man-in-the-middle attack.

Superfish is intended to help consumers find and discover products by analyzing images on the web. The visual search tool could allow you to look up an item you've stumbled upon but might not know the name of, or to find similar products that are perhaps more affordable.

Unfortunately, Superfish has been found to do more than it says. After users complained about it on Lenovo's forums, Lenovo social media program manager Mark Hopkins sought to extinguish the flames by telling users that Lenovo had removed the software, at least for now.

"Due to some issues (browser pop up behavior for example), with the Superfish Visual Discovery browser add-on, we have temporarily removed Superfish from our consumer systems until such time as Superfish is able to provide a software build that addresses these issues. As for units already in market, we have requested that Superfish auto-update a fix that addresses these issues," Hopkins said.

He went on to defend the software and tout its merits, though didn't address complaints that it's injecting its own self-signed certificates and intercepting web traffic, behavior that was confirmed on Twitter by a security engineer at Google.

BBC News spoke with security expert Prof Alan Woodward who described Superfish as being "like Google on steroids." He also said that people have shown it can intercept pretty much anything on the web.

"If someone went to, say, the Bank of America then Superfish would issue its own certificate pretending to be Bank of America and intercept whatever you are sending back and forth," Woodward said.

Users do have the option of declining the software when firing up their laptop or desktop for the first time, though according to The Guardian, some have complained that it installs anyway, and stays installed even if the software is uninstalled.

Update

Lenovo sent us the following statement on the matter:

Superfish was previously included on some consumer notebook products shipped in a short window between September and December to help customers potentially discover interesting products while shopping. However, user feedback was not positive, and we responded quickly and decisively:

1) Superfish has completely disabled server side interactions (since January) on all Lenovo products so that the product is no longer active. This disables Superfish for all products in market.

2) Lenovo stopped preloading the software in January.

3) We will not preload this software in the future.

We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns. But we know that users reacted to this issue with concern, and so we have taken direct action to stop shipping any products with this software. We will continue to review what we do and how we do it in order to ensure we put our user needs, experience and priorities first.

To be clear, Superfish technology is purely based on contextual/image and not behavioral. It does not profile nor monitor user behavior. It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is. Users are not tracked nor re-targeted. Every session is independent. Users are given a choice whether or not to use the product. The relationship with Superfish is not financially significant; our goal was to enhance the experience for users. We recognize that the software did not meet that goal and have acted quickly and decisively.

We are providing support on our forums for any user with concerns. Our goal is to find technologies that best serve users. In this case, we have responded quickly to negative feedback, and taken decisive actions to ensure that we address these concerns. If users still wish to take further action, detail information is available at http://forums.lenovo.com.

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