LG's slightly bigger 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro features the Snapdragon 600 SoC
LG have just unveiled their super-sized 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro, and by name only it might not excite you, but it does feature a new CPU that was just announced by Qualcomm.
LG's 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro will include the quad-core Snapdragon 600 CPU that is a slight upgrade on the already amazing Snapdragon S4 Pro. Software tweaks have also been made, including a dual record function that allows both cameras to record simultaneously and a VR Panorama mode that looks similar to Google's Photo Sphere stitching mode.
We obviously get a 5.5-inch screen, and a larger 3,140mAh battery compared to the older 3,000mAh battery. Finishing off the specs, we have 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, microSDXC slot and 4G LTE support.
LG will release the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro to local carriers in South Korea first, with SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus on Wednesday with a North American launch happening sometime in Q2, as well as Japan. We should hopefully see more on the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro at Mobile World Congress 2013 later this week.
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Bungie's new game, Destiny, gets revealed - is an always-on, persistent-world adventure
From the makers of Halo, we have a new game unveiled by Bungie - Destiny. Destiny is an always-on, persistent-world adventure game which the developers have signed up with Activision on a 10-year publishing deal.
The video above shows off a few quick glimpses at the otherwise bland first-person shooter bits (which I'm sure it's not a full-fledged FPS just yet), but it also unveils some of the more social integration Destiny will have, where you can create and customize your identities and gear to venture across an alternate universe to our own.
The big difference between Bungie's last massive game, Halo, and Destiny, is that it's not a lone soldier who saves the world - but a community of Guardians. Destiny will be more of a multi-player game than a singleplayer game, but this doesn't mean that those looking for a single-player game will miss out. Single player gamers can finish the quests off as a Guardian, but in order to "realize the vision of the game", Destiny will require an always-on Internet connection on all platforms regardless of play style.
Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg, has said that the always-on requirement is key to maintaining Bungie's vision of Destiny, adding "
that's the only reason for that restriction." In case you were worried this always-on requirement would end up costing money through subscription, that's not the case - with Hirshberg adding that there are "
absolutely no plans to charge a subscription fee."
Destiny's world will be quite astonishing, with Bungie's network code constantly working to ensure that players within proximity to each other will be matched when they enter public areas - such as quest areas, towns, etc - and while this sounds like an MMO, Bungie has reiterated that players shouldn't expect to see public areas sprawling with players. Bungie COO, Pete Parsons adds "
[The] amount of players you see is design controlled," where he finishes with that it's "
not about stuffing as many people in there as possible."
Bungie have also baked in some mobile support to Destiny, where you'll be able to access a mobile app that would provide players with statistical information, background info on their adventures, as well as notifications of in-world events and invites.
As to when we could expect it, and on what platforms, Bungie have announced Destiny for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. We should expect it to drop sometime before the end of the year, most likely just after the next-gen consoles are here. I'm dazed and confused as to why the unveiling of Destiny wasn't pushed back for next-gen consoles...
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Crysis 3 beta has been downloaded over 3 million times
Crysis 3 gets released in just over 48 hours, and is looking to do some good business as usual. First up, we have some download numbers on the beta, which was downloaded over 3 million times.
Most beta players will end up buying the full game, so we should expect at least 2-3 million sales just there. Crysis 2 sold 3 million units, so we should expect more sales this time around. Pre-order numbers are looking great too, where according to EA's end of January financial report, pre-orders for the third Crysis game are sitting at 40% higher than its predecessor.
Crysis 3 gets released on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on February 19 in the US, and two days later in Australia and Europe. Japan will have to wait until March 7 to get their nanosuit soldier gaming on.
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Kim Dotcom announces that Mega now accepts Bitcoin, will expand into email, chat, voice, video and mobile soon
Mega man himself Kim Dotcom has announced that Mega now has Bitcoin support, and has also unleashed some future nuggets that Mega will support in the near future. Dotcom reiterated his company's position to privacy, while also saying that his cloud storage is uniquely positioned in New Zealand to keep users' data more safe.
Dotcom also stated that Mega will eventually expand itself into email, chat, voice, video and mobile services "in the coming years". For details on Bitcoin-enabled Mega goodness, you can check out bitvoucher.co, where there's no less than six different ways to buy mega services with Bitcoin. Three monthly options are given, as well as three yearly options - all options cannot be refunded or exchanged. The options include:
- Mega Pro I: 500GB of data storage and 1TB of bandwidth for 0.5184 Bitcoin per month or 5.1888 Bitcoin per year.
- Mega Pro II: 2TB of data storage and 4TB bandwidth for 1.0373 Bitcoin per month or 10.3781 Bitcoin per year.
- Mega Pro III: 4TB of data storage and 8TB bandwidth per month for 1.5563 Bitcoin per month or 15.5674 Bitcoin per year.
Now we'll tackle the extra services that Mega will introduce over the next few years, first up we have chat, voice and video services. Dotcom isn't happy with the current services from Google, Microsoft and Apple, which are Gmail, Skype and iCloud, respectively. Dotcom states that these services don't offer enough privacy because they're based in the US, where the US government can demand access to users' data under specific circumstances.
When we dive into the mobile segment, it hits a brick wall - as Mega doesn't offer a mobile site, or a mobile app. Mega should definitely expand this, and I don't doubt they will, I'm sure we'll see a Mega app for most mobile OS' in the near future.
Go Mega, go!
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Facebook continues to collect data on users who have logged out of the social network
Last week we reported that Google were dishing out users' data to developers when they download apps from the Play store, but now it's being reported that Facebook takes data from users even when they're logged out of the social network.
Facebook have confirmed this, but have insisted that the information collected is only for security purposes or to aggregate statistics. Facebook's data collection is from the cookies on your computer when you visit the social network, with the cookies shifting the information over to Facebook from any site that you visit that contains a link to Facebook - such as the "like button".
With this information in-hand, Facebook can map out your web usage. Director of Engineering for Facebook, Arturo Bejar, has said that the data is used to combat spam and phishing attacks by detecting suspicious logins. Not only that, but cookies can use the data to keep users from having to complete extra authentication steps each time they log-in. Because, you know, everyone logs out of Facebook when they're finished with it.
Most people, like myself, would expect that once logged out, communication between the device you're on and Facebook is severed - over, off, finished. But, it look like this is not the case. A Facebook spokesman has said "
no information we receive when you see a social plugin is used to target ads."
There are ways around this, by using a separate browser for Facebook. So, if you're a Google Chrome user - install Firefox and use Facebook only within Firefox and do everything else within Chrome. The problem with that is you shouldn't have to do that - once you're logged out of Facebook, that should be it for data collection, period.
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TRIM Check: Overview of an essential SSD TRIM functionality tester
Introduction
Most SSD users are aware that TRIM is an essential Windows command that prolongs SSD life and ensures that their SSDs stay speedy. TRIM kicks-in after a file deletion in Windows and notifies the SSD controller of which data blocks should be wiped clean.
Like many SSD users I have always wondered whether TRIM actually works on my systems or not. We can check if TRIM is enabled simply by running the fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify command within an elevated command prompt. If the result is DisableDeleteNotify = 0 this means that TRIM is enabled. This however only means that the operating system is configured to send TRIM commands to the SSD controller; it doesn't necessarily mean that TRIM is fully functional. There is a method to check for TRIM functionality using a hex editor, but apart from that there hasn't been an easier and surefire way to find out whether TRIM actually works or not.
I came across some forum posts recently that indicated the existence of an easy-to-use freeware program which checks for TRIM functionality in a definite way. This utility is named "TRIM Check" and has been written by Vladimir Panteleev.
Let's take a look at it.
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Read the rest in your browser!
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