Software News

Last week we've announced that the Ubuntu 12.10 wallpaper contest emerged, which took place on Flickr, whcih ended on August 28th. It took only two days to decide the winner, and today, August 31st, we are proud to announce that Canonical packed and uploaded...

This year's IFA trade show in Berlin, Germany, is where the great brands on the consumer IT market have chosen as the stage for their 4K super-large displays.As the title says, we will talk about LG' model here, although we should probably say it up front that we'll show as much as we'll tell.The 84-inch TV features a native...

The new GK106 graphics chip from Nvidia seems to be ready for primetime, as many samples have already left the TSMC gate and ended up getting photographed on the internet. This graphics processing unit will enable Nvidia to make more money, as the GK104 on the GTX 660 Ti takes up quite a large chunk on a 28nm wafer. Nvidia’s...

Mozilla has been working on bringing down memory usage in Firefox for a while now, but accelerated efforts about a year ago with the MemShrink project. Since then, the big problems with Firefox have been fixed, so the latest big patch is actually for add-ons. Firefox 15 has a fix that should prevent the most common and problematic...

Developer Funcom has revealed that its recently launched MMO The Secret World has managed to sell only 200,000 units since it was launched in the early days of July. The company says that sales were lower than expected and believes that The Secret World...

The Nintendo Wii U isn’t a difficult platform to make games for, at least according to Steve Lycett, the executive producer of the upcoming Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, who revealed that the platform has a few great surprises, including its amount...

Germans have always been very keen about their privacy. Well, maybe they haven't always been this way, but they certainly are now. Things like taking photos in public are very frowned upon, apparently, not to mention your friends using a tool to tag you...

We’ve talked about ASUS’ intention of making a new dual GPU video card some time ago, but the company has bluntly denied any such plans so we gave up on the idea also. Now there is some new info available that suggests the Taiwanese giant is actually working on an Ares successor, but that’s not going to be a dual Pitcairn card...

This past Saturday, a female giant panda living in a Chinese breeding center successfully delivered its fourth cub so far. Immediately after birth, the animal is seen picking up its offspring in its mouth and carefully placing in on its belly, where it can keep it safe and lick it clean. Although the mother panda did handle...

Tests run on various portable Macs following the release of OS X 10.8.1 this week have yielded disappointing results regarding the much-expected improvements in battery life for MacBook owners.Although some developers have been able to confirm a significant...

Facebook has added smileys, hearts and other emoji elements to its Messenger application for iPhone and iPad aficionados. New features in Facebook Messenger 1.9 iOS include the addition of smileys, hearts and other emoji to messages, the ability to click the person's name at the top of your conversation to view their Facebook...

Security researchers have revealed the existence of an advanced persistent threat that has been making the rounds since April 2011. Identified as Backdoor.Hikit, the malware carries some interesting aces up its sleeve. Hikit has a number of four main components:...

The latest Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich update for Samsung Galaxy S III has finally reached Australian shores. This is maintenance release 2 update, so expect some minor changes to be added, as well as some bug fixes. Keep in mind that the update is currently available only for Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone sold by...

Sony has cleared things up concerning its Cross Buy system for the PlayStation Vita handheld console, confirming that the feature, which gives PS3 owners of a game a free copy for the Vita, would be made available in North America, not just in Europe. PS Vita owners were treated with a big surprise last week, when Sony confirmed...

Contradicting the very person who discovered the SMS spoofing bug in the iPhone operating system, security company AdaptiveMobile says the flaw detailed by hacker Pod2g is, in fact, serious. AdaptiveMobile released a whitepaper today to dispel some of...

With a release date for the “Thor” sequel for August 2013, Marvel is quickly moving to get the whole thing completed ASAP and then off into post-production. A new villain has been found in Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Variety confirms the casting news. The actor, who has made quite an impact in previous outings like “Oz,” “Lost,”...

Officials at the Northrop Grumman Corporation announce that the communications support structure for the next-generation NASA James Webb Space Telescope has just passed a Critical Design Review. The milestone maintains the development of the telescope,...

Apple has quietly added subtitles to some of the marketing videos for the company’s latest products, such as the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, and iCloud, the web-based suite of services replacing MobileMe.After airing three commercials that seemed to target the less-savvy Mac user, Apple is now offering the option to...

Welcome to A Gamer’s Week, our regular 7-day recap of the most important news in the gaming industry.Gamescom 2012 took place this week and it’s been a veritable cornucopia in terms of news, as many big companies made important announcements during the...

GetGlue, the application that lets you know what’s on TV, has been promoted to version 3.0 in the Apple App Store for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. AdaptiveBlue has included a personalized guide for TV, movies, and sports based on what your own tastes, the ability to get recommendations for shows you plan on watching, as well...

AMD released a couple of days ago, on August 15th, version 12.8 of the AMD Catalyst video driver for Linux platforms, brining production support for the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) operating system. So, as usual, the newly released AMD Catalyst 12.8...

Retina displays are only now starting to become a reality. They're not going to be common let alone the majority for a long time to come, but it's nice to see browser makers get ready for the eventual switch. We've already seen Chrome roll out a retina...

Google has released an updated version of its Google+ (Google Plus) application for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Among other things, the app now opens posted web links in Chrome, if the browser is installed on your iOS device. According to the Google+ 3.1 for iOS changelog, “web links in posts now open in Chrome (if installed).”...

Hey there, Linux gamers! There’s a new Humble Bundle for Android, and Linux, and Mac, and Windows, available for purchase right now, offering five entertaining games for all ages. Humble Bundle for Android 3 comes with the following games: Fieldrunners, BIT.TRIP...

It’s the second time I get to Cologne in order to report on the Gamescom trade show and once again I am impressed by how foreign a city can be to the traveler, even if its culture, economics and politics are similar to that of the place I hail from: Bucharest,...

Since Apple hasn’t bothered to include a Retina category in the Mac App Store for owners of a shiny new $2,199 / 1,782 € MacBook Pro, three dudes with design inclinations decided they’d go the extra mile and create a hub for all the Mac apps that have been upgraded with Retina-grade graphics. Wells Riley, Ian Hirschfeld, Alex...

Gigabyte is one of the world’s largest motherboard manufacturers and we were quite surprised to see the company venture in the UltraBook market some time ago. Sure Gigabyte made notebooks, netbook and even mobile phones besides motherboards, but getting...

Windows 8, the next-generation operating system from Microsoft, is nearing its official release on October 26th, and some more info on the features that users would be able to purchase for it has started to emerge. One of the capabilities that Windows...

CD Projekt RED, the developer behind the highly successful Witcher series of action role-playing game, believes that the introduction of post-launch downloadable content should be seen as a service to gamers and should not cost anything extra. Konrad...

The world’s largest CPU designer and manufacturer is working on its next-generation Haswell processor architecture. The company is apparently concentrating on the iGPU part of the new design and somewhat less on the x86 cores. Intel has enjoyed a serious performance advantage over its main x 86 competitors, the fabless Texas-based...

Google has updated both the beta and the dev channel Chrome, though none of them has been "upgraded" to another major version. Google Chrome 21.0.1180.77 beta fixes a single issue with "Node::attributes." Google Chrome 21 is already in the stable channel, so beta users should be getting ready for a bump up to Chrome 22. They'll...

Google’s Nexus 7 has already been sold out in many areas and ASUS can’t seem to be making them fast enough. Seeing how successful the 7” tablet market sector can be once the price is right and the marketing machine starts working, Samsung is preparing its own unique 7” tablet solution. The name of Samsung’s 7” weapon is...

A list of the Killstreaks and the Perks that will be included in Call of Duty: Black Ops II has been leaked online, giving players a taste of what they are in for when they launch the various multiplayer modes of the first-person shooter. The Killstreaks...

Since Miley Cyrus announced she was engaged to longtime beau Liam Hemsworth, the tabloids have already “married” them at least twice. As it turns out, she's really not in a hurry to tie the knot, she says in a new interview with Marie Claire. The former...

Philips has just introduced a new 3D LED monitor featuring a rather small 23” diagonal size. The new model is called 236G and you need Easy 3D glasses to be able to enjoy the 3D capabilities of the new unit. We don’t really like 3D monitors at all, and this one is likely an “affordable” model – if you can call $308 (€249) affordable...

It is a well-known fact that traditional Chinese medicine relies heavily on the use of various animal parts. Thus, environmentalists and conservationists have long opposed the fact that this industry requires that ivory taken from elephants and rhino...

An emerging robotics company called Quantum International Corp. pursuing lucrative targets around the globe believes that robots controlled via Apple’s iPad are pushing the boundaries in improving the ways that children with autism learn and communicate.Quantum...

Pantech and AT&T are about to introduce a new Android smartphone in the United States. An unannounced Pantech P9090 Magnus has just showed up at FCC (Federal Communications Commission).This seems to be another mid-range Android smartphone, which will offer quad-band LTE support. According to the documents filed at FCC, the...

Security researchers part of the Vulnerability Lab have identified a medium severity software filter and validation vulnerability that affects Kaspersky’s Password Manager 5.0.0.164 and older variants. According to the experts, the flaw allows a local...

The movie-making app Avid Studio has been enhanced with a ton of new features and tweaks this week, and Avid is releasing the 1.1.1 update as a free download to all existing users. The app now supports Retina displays and features improved Library update...

Though still contested by many, Pitbull is, without a doubt, one of the hottest and most in demand acts in music today. Still, even he needs a helping hand every once in a while. Luckily, he gets it from none other than Shakira. Above is the official video for “Get It Started,” the latest release with Pitbull's signature...

Built as the first Android-based tablet PC to offer a true Google experience, Nexus 7 will include a nice range of appealing features, such as Google+ Hangouts. Launched with the new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system right from the start, the tablet PC will provide users with the possibility to easily engage in conversations...