IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 01/07/2014

North Korea fires two ballistic missiles to provoke rivals
Just days after launching three short-range missiles, North Korea followed up with an additional missile test. South Korean military officials believe two short-range Scud ballistic missiles were fired, and the country didn't designate no-sail zones during the launch.

It's not uncommon for North Korea to launch missiles while snubbing Washington and Seoul, as political tensions in Asia continue to mount. The Scud-type missiles launched from Wonsan and flew more than 300 miles, where they landed harmlessly into the ocean, military specialists in South Korea said. It's difficult to determine the true capabilities of the North Korean military, as the country sometimes greatly exaggerates its successes.
The country also plans to indict two Americans currently held in North Korea for "hostile acts," pressuring Washington and Seoul even further. It's a delicate time in the Korean Peninsula - earlier in the year it looked like both sides were willing to openly discuss political tensions - but talks have cooled with Pyongyang and Seoul slinging mud at one another.









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Google officials visit Cuba to discuss access to open Internet
Google executives recently visited Havana, Cuba, in an effort to discuss open Internet in the still restrictive nation. A team that included Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt headed to Havana to meet with officials and dissidents, "to promote the virtues of a free and open Internet."

A report published by Freedom House in 2012 said just five percent of the citizens in Cuba have true access to the Internet, with one-fourth of the population using the state-sponsored "Intranet." The country remains one of the least connected nations in the world, with home connections still virtually non-existent - government officials, doctors, engineers, professors, and approved journalists tend to be the only ones with Internet access while in their offices.
Google has become more proactive approach to getting citizens around the world real access to the Internet. Trying to work with Cuba to open up Internet access will be a difficult process, but it's good to see the company at least trying to make strides.









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United States joins international treaty that bans landmine use
The United States is the latest country to put an end to purchasing and using anti-personnel landmines, with President Barack Obama pressured by other countries to join the international ban treaty. The global treaty includes the production, stockpiling and use of anti-personnel landmines, which reportedly kills 15,000 people each year - and most casualties are civilians.

"Today at a review conference in Maputo, Mozambique, the United States took a step of declaring it will not produce or otherwise acquire any anti-personnel landmines (APL) in the future," said Caitlin Hayden, National Security Council spokeswoman.
However, the U.S. won't immediately get rid of all mines, but administration officials said the arsenal will be scaled down. The U.S. invests the most funds, $2.3 billion since 1993, to aid in global de-mining programs, and has shifted focus towards "smart" mines that will disable after a pre-programmed amount of time.
Steve Goose, Human Rights Watch arms director, applauded the U.S. decision, and wants the country to announce a target date to join the Mine Ban Treaty - and begin destruction of current stockpiles.









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Chinese shops finding success selling phones to North Koreans
Cheap mobile phones are available for sale in small shops popping up along the border between China and North Korea, as citizens begin to access cell phones for the first time. However, many North Koreans struggle to purchase the devices China, as it is expensive to register the phones and smuggle them into the country.

All phone calls and text messages are monitored by the Communications Interception Bureau of the Ministry for State Security - and the government is able to look up call and text message records whenever necessary.
Mobile phone use in North Korea is increasing in popularity, with the launch of the North Korean AS1201 Arirang smartphone. The product is state-manufactured and supports the Korean language, but phone calls can only be made using the country's Koryolink provider, so no international calls or mobile Web access is supported.









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RoboCop (2014) Blu-ray Movie Review

RoboCop (2014)

With its incredibly dark, even comedic over the top violence, stop motion effects and glib one liners, RoboCop is undoubtedly one of the quintessential 80's cinematic classics. So perhaps the only surprise in this modern reimagining is that it's taken nearly 30 years to happen. Isolated from franchise lore, RoboCop 2014 is a solid sci-fi action thriller, with equal parts thrills and brains. So why did audiences stay away? Well, the answer is kinda complex.

The year is 2028 and drone technology has improved to the point where mechanised robots patrol previously violent hotspots around the globe - everywhere except for the United States, thanks to the obstructions of Senator Dreyfuss (Zach Grenier).
OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) continues to lobby for the domestic rollout, in order to strengthen sagging profits and seizes his chance when Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), one of the few good Detroit cops is mortally injured in an explosion. With this event, Sellars has all the ammunition he needs to sell the benefits of his controversial program by putting a thinking man inside an OmniCorp battle suit.
Much of the criticism levelled at the film revolves around the eschewing of the hard 'R' rating of the original, which reveled in blood, severed limbs and language, one that even after 25 years on still has the power to shock. RoboCop 2014 is a much more sanitised and accessible feature which admittedly pushes the boundaries of a PG-13 even if it doesn't make sense (a mass shootout is played out in the dark with bad guys donning infra-red glasses, despite Robo being similarly equipped), but results in a significantly different tone and end product.
Despite my general antipathy to the deluge of reboots and the like, it's hard to ignore the obvious efforts and well-meaning intentions both in front of and behind the camera. Still, I can't help but feel that something is 'off', and the writers have not capitalized enough on the moral questions the film raises. Ultimately, RoboCop just isn't that engaging; it's a sugar hit of effects that won't have much longevity, it's gotten fans of the original instantly off side and at the end of the day, it's just not a property that needed to be remade. And I believe that's the key to RoboCops perceived failure.

Video

RoboCop is encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression and presented in the intended aspect ratio of 2.40:1.
Lensed on a combination of digital Arri Alexa and Red EPIC cameras and finalised in a 2K digital intermediate, RoboCop certainly looks the sum of its parts, a sharp and glossy presentation that pleases the eye and ticks all the right tech boxes too.
Color tones are well balanced, and superbly contrasted, regardless of whether a scene is set in perfect light, or the dim of darkness. At all times, this is incredibly detailed presentation, which admittedly does reveal some of the infrequent deficiencies in visual effects sequences, but soars on fine textures and tones.
I didn't detect any issues with macro blocking, aliasing or any other digital nasties - this is tier one encoding from an impeccable source. Top marks all round.

Audio

RoboCop is presented in DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, at 24 bits.
There's certainly nothing subtle about RoboCop's re-imagination, which is basically as aggressive as they come. The front and rear soundstages coalesce into a convincing and utterly complete 360 degree sound field which is mightily impressive, even if it draws attention to itself unnecessarily.
I didn't detect any issues with audio sync nor dialogue intelligibility.

Extras

The equivalent of a 'pump and dump', it appears that Fox and MGM haven't given much love to the supplements section, although there are a few nugget. Let's take a look.
The bulk of the package is served by three featurettes, which total around 30 minutes of footage. The first, The Illusion of Free Will: A New Vision looks at the differences between the original, and the remake - particularly revolving around the changing world, which serves as a particularly important element to Robo circa 2014, whilst To Serve and Protect: RoboCop's New Weapons looks, rather unsurprisingly, at the cache of Robo's high tech machinery that goes boom quite satisfyingly. The RoboCop Suit: Form and Function featurette looks at the newly upgraded suit and the visual effects necessary to depict the man (or what's left of him) behind the armor.
Next are 6 minutes of generally superfluous Deleted Scenes and three minutes of faux Omnicorp Product Announcements, which you'll probably grow quickly tired of.
Finally, we have two Theatrical Trailers in 1080p.
PRICING: You can find RoboCop (2014) on Blu-ray for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.
United States: RoboCop (2014) on Blu-ray retails for $25.78 at Amazon.
Canada: RoboCop (2014) on Blu-ray retails for CDN$19.99 at Amazon Canada.
Australia: RoboCop (2014) on Blu-ray retails for $29.99 AUD at Mighty Ape Australia.
New Zealand: RoboCop (2014) on Blu-ray retails for $34.99 NZD at Mighty Ape NZ.

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A close-up look and discussion of Crucial's upcoming DDR4 Memory

Getting acquainted with Crucial DDR4 server RAM

Micron announced its first fully functional DDR4 module back on May 7, 2012. These memory modules were co-developed by Nanya and were based on Micron's 30nm technology. The memory modules were expected to be the industry's most complete lineup, including RDIMMs, LRDIMMs, 3DS, SODIMMs, and UDIMMs in standard and ECC versions.
At that time, the JEDEC definition of DDR4 was very near finalization, and Micron put significant effort in making the first DDR4 products as JEDEC compatible as possible.
Crucial memory modules are based on 30nm technology, and we can expect volume production by the end of this year. DDR4 technology is being driven by streaming video, cloud-based applications and storage, plus an increase in mobile connectivity. This makes DDR4 perfect for manufacturers looking to increase bandwidth needs now and in the future.
When you consider that hundreds of millions of photos are uploaded to Facebook and billions of images are viewed each day, you can see that there is a strong need to increase bandwidth to feed these hungry systems now and to supply future needs.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), mobile video use is expected to increase to 7.5 exabytes in 2017. Mobile web and data is also expected to increase to 3.0 exabytes in this time frame. Some of the key benefits that you can look forward to with DDR4 memory are:

Two times the speed

The introductory data rates start at 2133 MT/s and will get even faster as this technology matures. Bandwidth also increases to 17 GB/s.
DDR3 server memory can top out at 1866 MT/s on platforms that can support it, and bandwidth can reach about 9.6 GB/s in some of our tests in the lab. This should allow us to see about double the bandwidth over DDR3 based systems. We will now have a fatter pipe to memory for data to flow through when using DDR4.

Two times the Capacity

Using higher density components allows DDR4 modules to be twice as dense.
With DDR3 memory, a normal load out of RAM might be in the range of eight 8GB sticks for 64GB total. Yes, you could use 16GB DDR3 sticks, but these were often very costly and hard to find. For your everyday, average server, 64GB of RAM is plenty, but as system requirements grow with the new X99 platform and Haswell-E server platforms, we expect the RAM load out to grow to 128GB for the norm. Systems will become more capable, and this will drive consolidation of servers into higher performing systems.

Up to 40% more energy efficient

Crucial DDR4 memory will use 20 percent less voltage over DDR3 memory. The new DDR4 technology uses 1.2V vs DDR3 at 1.5V. This does not sound like a huge amount--only 0.3V--but when you configure 16 memory sticks in a 2P system, that's a savings of 4.8V. This adds up to a large amount when you figure in a full rack of servers.
Not only does DDR4 technology reduce power use, but it also runs cooler. This is another huge factor in server rack setups. Lower power use and running cooler helps reduce costs associated with server farms and high density racks.

Enhanced cloud computing, big data, HPC and more

Crucial has maximized DDR4 memory capacity and achieved next-generation performance. Crucial's DDR4 is optimized for the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors. With the ability to double up on memory, we will start to see applications taking use of this to achieve higher performance. Besides CPUs, memory is the next biggest performance enhancement that you can do in a server.
With almost double the bandwidth of DDR3, applications can push more data through the pipes at a faster rate. Many databases can reside in memory with increased memory load outs.

Crucial DDR4 Overview

Here we are looking at two different memory sticks by Crucial. The top memory stick is 16GB and the bottom is 8GB. You can see in the 16GB stick that memory modules have been doubled up to achieve the higher density.
Also notice the pin contact area at the bottom of the memory stick has a ramped edge to reduce insertion force.

The actual dimensions of a DDR4 memory stick are very close to a DDR3 stick. They are not taller than DDR3 as we have seen some websites state.
As DDR4 does have a different pin out at the bottom, these sticks have a groove in a different location to prevent them from being inserted into a DDR3 memory slot.

In this chart, we can see the different modules that will be used in Crucial's DDR4 memory. The main differences in these are the speed bins used.

Here we can see how Crucial will roll out different speed grades of RAM sticks. Just like in DDR3, slower speed memory can have a lower clock cycle (CL) rate. CL CAS (column address strobe) latency is the number of clock cycles it takes before data starts to flow after a command is received.
Another big concern we see on forums is the CL15 timings that will be used. This is not far off from DDR3 timings at the given speeds. Yes, some DDR3 memory kits have been binned to achieve higher memory speeds with lower CL timings, but consider that DDR4 will have double the bandwidth versus DDR3, and this is what is important in server based memory. DDR4 will also typically have double the cycles per transaction compared to DDR3.

Here we can start putting DDR4 into perspective. Clock rates are double those of DDR3. This means faster access to data stored into memory. The data rate of DDR4 is twice that of DDR3 and with higher density. Not only will we be able to access our data at twice the speed of DDR3, we can move double the amount of data at the same time.
As time goes on and the DDR4 technology improves, we are sure we will start to see even faster memory showing up.

The new DDR4 standard will greatly improve server limitations from cloud computing, virtualization, HPC, and more. Memory dependent applications will get larger RAM pools that are faster and have higher bandwidth. More VMs will be able to run that are more responsive to user demands.
Add to that the lower power use, and cooler running RAM will help to lower running costs. As DDR4 becomes more commonplace, we should start seeing larger density RAM sticks become commonplace. Crucial has been one of the first to get samples of the new DDR4 out into the hands of major OEMs and users with the Crucial DDR4 Technology Enablement Program (TEP), so we all can be ready when server platforms start being released.
Here in TweakTown's Enterprise Lab, we have Crucial DDR4 memory testing and ready to go, so look forward to seeing our performance reviews later this year.
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EA Sports UFC Xbox One Game Review

It's widely seen that UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) is the fastest growing sports franchise on the planet and as someone who has watched a few fights, it's not hard to see why. This is a sport that harkens back to our tribal days where our wild side and survival of the fittest natures kick in. This is a sport that whilst seeming like two blokes (or ladies) punching the daylights out of each other, requires a ridiculous amount of skill, training and sometimes luck. THQ has in the past tried to capture the magic of the UFC series in video game format, and done extremely well. However, with THQ having closed down, it was left for someone else to pick up the pieces for UFC fans and that someone is EA. On the new consoles only, this game is impressive, but it also has many elements that could have been better.
UFC offers a number of game modes to choose from, but the primary career mode is the opportunity for you to take an unknown fighter all the way to the top. In the career mode, you begin on The Ultimate Fighter (which like the UFC, is officially licensed for the game) before making it to the preliminary rounds and ultimately the pay per shows. This is generally how those who succeed on TUF carry out their careers as well, so it's nice to see EA try to build in the full UFC experience including TUF.
However, there are a few problems with the career mode, which just cannot be ignored. First of all, the primary goal of the game is to become the champion of the weight class you fit into with your custom character. That is all well and good, but past that all you are doing is continuously defending the title. There really is no end game here, which is unfortunate because in the past we have seen games like this have specific goals to achieve to 'beat' the game. Whilst this mimics real life, it does not in our opinion really fit well into the video game spectrum.

The other thing about the career mode is that it just gets boring after a while. The career mode tasks you with taking on a fight, training a few times and then taking on another fight. Depending on how well you do in training will determine how many skill points you have to attribute to your fighter before the next match. What really harms the game in this respect is the load times. They are not overly long, but they are long enough to become frustrating, especially when fights often are finished in the first round. This happens to be one of the game's biggest problems, which we will cover further into this review. As long as you are a good fighter, it's sometimes possible to get enough points to boost without having to do the training, which can make this a bit more bearable.

Aside from the career mode, there are a few other ways to play, including an exhibition match, where you take some of the existing UFC fighters and fight with them, a challenge mode and also online play. The challenge mode is basically a way to take on challenges and learn how the game works beyond the tutorials. The fact the game requires two ways to learn the controls should tell you how complex this control system really is.
One thing to note about this game is that it takes some time to learn how all the complex systems within the game play out. This is a game that spends the first thirty minutes teaching you how to play, and even then, it is likely you will find yourself going back to the tutorial at least a few times before becoming proficient, especially with the submissions. Submissions are probably the most unique and difficult facets of the game to become accustomed to. If you are the player being submitted, you have to move the R stick in any direction trying to outfox the opponent, whilst the player applying the submission needs to catch the other player using R. In general it works, but it's certainly not easy to get submissions, even with the specialists.
Our main problem with the game comes from the actual fighting. The engine (Ignite) that EA has used has replicated the UFC fighters well in terms of movement and animation, but it seems somewhere along the way they forgot they were making a simulation. Some quick research shows that typically about a third of the fights in the UFC end up finishing via knockout. In this game, it's about eighty percent from what we have played. It's just seemingly way too easy to get a knockout hit.
Even if the character is not 'rocked' to use the UFC slang, they can take a hit that gets them down instantly and the fight is over. Whilst this does mean that you always have to worry about taking hits, in comparison to its former competitor from UFC, it just ends this way far too much. This is the kind of thing that could be patched, so hopefully EA considers it. It is also really disappointing that such a conformist style control system is used. It would have been nice to see something like that of Fight Night where the sticks become the arms and legs of the fighter.

Aside from this, the actual events are replicated well. Even some of the UFC international events have been made available within the game, and the presentation matches that of the pay per view events right down to the imagery used to display the fighters and introduce them. There is no doubt that this is one area EA has knocked it out of the park in. Each match is introduced by Bruce Buffer in his typical over the top style, and commentary is provided by Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg. Although after a while the commentary does become repetitive, it contains far more dialogue options than some of the other sports games around.
Multiplayer is available in the game in the form of local play with two controllers or online. To access the online features of the game, you do need to sign up for an Origin account, but this also gives you access to Fighter Net, where you can upload images of your face to superimpose onto your create a fighter. The results are actually quite impressive given that its being built off basic images and even though it's a painful process of going to a site, uploading the images and downloading them into the game, the result does somewhat make it worth going through all that.

Visually the game is impressive, beyond the superimposed face as well. Each of the characters look like their real-world counterparts, no doubt helped by the power of the new consoles and each moves and punches in the same manner, as well. The aforementioned presentation of the game is incredibly impressive and in terms of frame rate, the game never misses a trick. In addition, the brutal nature of the fights is shown via cuts that can appear on characters faces and bodies and blood spurting onto the canvas. Occasionally the game will glitch up and fighters will do a few stupid things (that are hilarious), but overall it's pretty solid in the visuals department.
EA Sports UFC is in many was impressive, but in some other important areas, it's a disappointment. It is a real shame that the control system from Fight Night was not adapted in some manner, and the arcade feel of the game really does not simulate the sport that well. There are far too many knock outs and short fights for this to be considered a true simulation of the sport. If you want an MMA game, there is not much competition out there, so this is it for you, but don't be surprised if you come away a little disappointed. A fairly solid effort, but it needs some work.
PRICING: You can find EA Sports UFC for Xbox One for sale below. The prices listed are valid at the time of writing but can change at any time. Click the link to see the very latest pricing for the best deal.
United States: EA Sports UFC for Xbox One retails for $59.96 at Amazon.
Canada: EA Sports UFC for Xbox One retails for CDN$69.89 at Amazon Canada.
Australia: EA Sports UFC for Xbox One retails for $69.99 AUD at Mighty Ape Australia.
New Zealand: EA Sports UFC for Xbox One retails for $95.00 NZD at Mighty Ape NZ.

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