IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 6/29/2015

iPhone 6S will reportedly feature Force Touch technology
We know that Apple is preparing the new iPhone 6S, with previous rumors pegging it to include a bunch of new features and upgrades over the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

One of those new technologies will be Force Touch, something Apple unveiled not too long ago with its new MacBook. Force Touch is a nifty technology that sees the surface of the device feature a pressure-sensitive mini electrode that acts, and feels like, the feel of a button when pressed down.

Apple will reportedly be offering the new 'S' upgrade of the next-gen iPhone in the same 4.7- and 5.5-inch size that the current iPhone is offered in. But how will Apple deploy its Force Touch technology? We are expecting Apple to use the same style and look of the current iPhone, with numerous changes under the hood, as well as Force Touch. Apple is expected to roll out the new iPhone 6S later this year.


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Thanks to Unreal Engine 4, Mario has never looked better
If I had a dollar for every hour I've pumped into Mario games over the years, I'd be a rich man. But in the last few years, I haven't really played many Nintendo games apart from Mario Kart 8.

But if they looked as good as the ones we have above thanks to YouTuber 'aryoksini' who has teased Mario in the world of Unreal Engine 4, then I'd be spending many hours in front of my PC. The video shows off Mario running around and leaping about the place with the various environmental assets that are found within the Unreal Engine 4 license.

Not only that, but all of the animations are created from scratch, and are pre-scripted.

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Deus Ex devs wants to avoid causing drama, tries to avoid religion
It's no secret that Deus Ex games don't shy away from sometimes touchy subjects, and while Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has its own curious plot points, don't expect Eidos Montreal to directly touch on religion.

"One thing that we never touch on from the front is religion," said Jean-Francois Dugas, game director at Eidos Montreal, in the latest issue of GamesMaster. "The subject we're tackling, it goes into religion from the aspect of do we choose to play God or not? But we try to keep it as agnostic as we can because the field is too sensitive. We also don't want to be offensive in any way, or tackle something we don't really understand ourselves. Instead we distill transhumanism, and what it does for human beings regardless of your beliefs."

Eidos Montreal showed off the game during E3 2015, and featured a game preview and a second portion demonstrating its actual gameplay. The studio wants to focus on allowing players to mix in a bit of stealth and head-to-head action, providing gamers the chance to play through the game how they feel most comfortable.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will launch sometime in 2016 for the PC, Microsoft Xbox One, and Sony PlayStation 4.


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Police officer fired after Confederate flag boxers selfie found on FB
An officer from the North Charleston Police Department has been fired after he foolishly posted a picture in which he was wearing nothing but Confederate flag boxer shorts. Not surprisingly, the post by former Sgt. Shannon Dildine - which was online for a few days - quickly spread on the Internet, and found its way to his commanding officers.

"Your posting in this manner led you to being publicly identified as a North Charleston Police officer and associated both you and the Department with an image that symbolizes hate and oppression to a significant portion of the citizens we are sworn to serve," said Police Chief Eddie Driggers, in a termination letter to Sgt. Dildine.

Following a violent gun incident in which nine black worshipers were killed in a South Carolina church by a self-proclaimed white supremacist, the Confederate flag has become a topic of national debate. Even for those arguing the officer has the right to free speech, he clearly lacked a bit of common sense by posting the picture.

Several southern states are removing the Confederate flag from their state capitols and license plates, but it remains visible in South Carolina. However, Gov. Nikki Haley publicly said she wants it removed, and discussions are scheduled to take place on July 6.


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Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will feature Zombie Mode
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 gamers will get to enjoy Zombie Mode, which Treyarch Studios is expected to show off during Comic-Con in San Diego next month. Zombies gameplay director Jason Blundell will unveil the "mind-bending tale of the undead" for the latest CoD: Black Ops video game.

There aren't too many details about what gamers can expect, so we'll have to wait and see what happens during Comic-Con in a couple of weeks.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is scheduled for launch on November 6, and will be available for the PC, Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Xbox One.


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Don't fly your drone near the wildfire, because they get in the way
A massive wildfire in the San Bernardino Mountains faced setbacks because of three incidents involving drones being flown by members of the public. Once the drones entered the airspace in which firefighting aircraft were operating, there was an immediate halt to operations.

"Losing the ability to utilize these aircraft has a serious impact on the success of the firefighters on the ground," according to the incident team responsible for fighting the wildfire, in a statement published by NBC News. The airtankers are required to fly at low altitudes, and drone operators could face civil penalties or criminal prosecution depending on the outcome.

Here is what the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a statement regarding the incidents: "A collision with a hobby drone could easily result in major damage to firefighting aircraft, injuries to the pilot and crew on board as well as firefighters below, and worse, a midair collision."


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Samsung Pay could take off compared to other mobile payment efforts
Samsung Pay hasn't launched yet, but there is a significant possibility the mobile payment platform could have a major advantage by using technology developed from LoopPay.

LoopPay, which Samsung acquired, uses Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology that will allow any Samsung smartphone to make a payment on current credit card readers. In addition, you can simply use a digital barcode - which can be scanned at checkout - as a method to make a payment.

Even if most of you haven't experimented with mobile payments just yet, the industry as a whole is expected to reach $37 billion this year. Of course, that number is half what Business Insider expected - and it won't magically become easier to convince users to try a non-traditional payment.

Both Apple Pay and Android Pay force interested retailers to upgrade their point-of-sale machines so they accept near-field communication payments. While some retailers are making the change, others haven't been as fast to make changes.


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Samsung develops battery capable of double the capacity we have now
Samsung Electronics' research arm has just created something that will truly trump Apple in a few years time, where the South Korean giant has just developed a new technology that will pave the way for all-day battery life on smartphones and tablets.

The new technology will see Samsung create a silicon cathode material for coating high crystal graphene on a silicon surface to usher in an energy density that is nearly two times more than existing lithium batteries. Current lithium batteries were developed and commercialized by Sony in the 90s, and have slowly been getting better and better, but the material itself has its limitations.

Most of the development of high-capacity battery materials has been done in the US, but there is a major technological problem that shortens the life of a lithium battery from constant charging and discharging. The R&D center of Samsung Electronics has succeeded where no one else has, developing a high-density and very durable cathode material by coating the strong and conductive graphene on the surface of the silicon, in order to create a type of protective shell around the silicon.

Samsung has been working on improving battery capacity to make itself stand out from the competition, and this technology could be its ticket. Licensing out the technology will surely make them virtually have the ability of printing money, especially considering how many hundreds of millions of devices are sold each year.

Industry watchers have said that the technology will need around two to three years to reach commercialization.


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Google engineer says humans will be hybrids by 2030 thanks to nanotech
We're only 15 years away from the year 2030, where we're expected to see human brains assisted by nanobot implants that will turn us into "hybrids", according to one of the world's leading thinkers.

The Director of Engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil, has said that in the 2030s, we will see implants connecting humans to the cloud. We would then be able to pull information from the cloud, from our own brains, all while information will be allowed from your brain to the cloud, letting you back your brain up to the cloud. You know, in case of a bad hangover one night, you could just restore your brain to the night before. #backsupforlife

Kurzweil has said that as the cloud accessing our brain improves (and before Skynet takes over), our thinking and cognitive abilities would expand quicker than we can imagine. At first, it would be a "hybrid of biological and non-biological thinking", but as we shift into the 2040s, most of our thinking will be done off-brain, and would thus be non-biological. Think, "OK Google, can I afford to buy pizza tonight" or "OK Google, what is 5.2 million divided by 2.39".

If you think Kurzweil could be a tinfoil hat wearing nut, you'd be wrong, as he's considered one of the most accurate and prominent predictors of the future. From his predictions Kurzweil made since the 1990s, an estimated 86% of them have been correct. Of course, some have been wrong, but Kurzweil seems to be right more of the time. He said that self-driving cars would be here by the end of the last decade, and while it might have been wrong, he was very close to the mark.


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EA will kick off the Star Wars: Battlefront closed alpha on July 2
While the full game won't be released until November, the closed alpha of Star Wars: Battlefront will begin pre-loading for gamers on July 1, and then playable on July 2. It was only a couple of days ago that EA said it would delay Star Wars: Battlefront if the 'quality isn't right'.

If you don't manage to make it into the closed beta, EA will be showing off the PC version of Star Wars: Battlefront at Comic-Con between July 9 and July 12. On the official site, the company says: "Apply for your chance to join the Closed Alpha and help us prepare for the release of Star Wars Battlefront starting on November 17, 2015 in North America. Available for Origin on PC only, the purpose of the Star Wars Battlefront Closed Alpha is to perform a number of technical tests that will help the team at DICE as they continue the development of the game".


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#GuysCuddlingVideoCards has started, start cuddling your video cards
Forbes' Jason Evangelho has kicked one of the most awesome things I've ever seen for video cards, where he started off by posting a picture of himself on his Facebook cuddled up to the HBM-powered AMD Radeon R9 Fury X.

AMD's Roy Taylor kicked in posting his own photo, and then offering $2 to the charity of Jason's choice for every picture, up until $500 is raised for the hashtag #guyscuddlingwithvideocards. Well, I have countless video cards here in my office, so I covered my daughter from head to toe in video cards and snapped the above photo! Great fun!


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Snapdragon 820 to be made on Samsung's 14nm process, clocked at 3GHz
According to the latest reports, Qualcomm will be getting Samsung to produce its upcoming Snapdragon 820 processor on its 14nm FinFET process.

Additional reports state that Qualcomm will be pushing its Krait cores to the site, using the more efficient and faster Kyro cores instead. The Snapdragon 820 processor should see 8 cores clocked at 3GHz, which will make it one of, if not the fastest mobile processor in the world. When will we see the Snapdragon 820 architecture powering devices?

We should see Qualcomm pushing the new Snapdragon 820 processors into devices in Q4 2015.


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Intel's enthusiast Skylake-S 'K-series' will ship without stock cooler
With Intel all set to unveil their new Skylake-S series of processors at Gamescom 2015 in August, we're hearing that the new 'K-series' enthusiast processors will not ship with a stock cooler.

Intel is set to release its Core i7-6700K processor a week after Windows 10 is released, with Intel aiming at enthusiasts buying their own high-performance air, or liquid cooling system for their new CPU. The chipmaker will be offering a new PCG 2015D high performance air and liquid cooling solutions, but the processor itself will ship without a HSF.

The next question is, will Intel drop the price to counter that the processor doesn't include a stock cooler, or will Intel make more profit per K-series CPU it ships, thanks to not giving consumers a cooler.


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BlackBerry shows interest in creating bacteria-free smartphone
BlackBerry isn't giving up on smartphones, and is looking for opportunities to create phones in the workplace - including in hospitals, where a bacteria-free device could be needed.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen didn't confirm if the company is already working on a bacteria-free smartphone, but has shown interest. "Healthcare workers have to be worried about one less thing to wipe down" if they have a bacteria-free phone, Chen recently noted.

Bacteria and infections are transferred between doctors and patients, causing a "huge issue," said Dr. Aviv Gladman, chief medical information officer at Mackenzie Health, in a statement published by Bloomberg.

Bacteria can hitch a free ride on a smartphone and transfer throughout the hospital, especially if medical professionals don't wipe their phone down before entering and after exiting a room. Of course, there is no way to tell how successful using an alcohol wipe actually is at removing bacteria from devices.

BlackBerry once was the smartphone king, but struggled as the Apple iPhone and Google Android-powered smartphones took over. Even though the company was urged to fully abandon smartphones altogether, Chen feels there are unique opportunities where BlackBerry can succeed.


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Distracted drivers using technology... an actual addiction?
Drivers seemingly can't avoid texting, talking, and even using voice chat while behind the wheel of their vehicles - and it's still extremely dangerous. Sixty-one percent of drivers admitted to texting and driving, one in 10 drivers engage in video chats, and 17 percent say they take selfies.

Additional frightening statistics: One-third of survey respondents say they check their email, and 30 percent of drivers frequently check Twitter while driving. One in five say checking social networks while driving is an "addiction," and there might be actual scientific research to back it:

"In essence, it's a drug, or what I call a digital drug," said Dr. David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction at the University of Connecticut, in a statement to CBS News. "The reward comes in an unpredictable fashion, both in terms of what, when and where; and when the reward comes and it's positive and you actually like it, that's going to elevate the amount of dopamine in your brain, which is a pleasure chemical. It increases the likelihood of wanting to do it."

As a public service announcement - please don't read emails, Tweet, text, or take selfies while driving.


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ICYDOCK ExpressCage Two and Four Bay Drive Cages Review

ICYDOCK has been designing and producing storage solutions for two decades, their line-up includes everything from docking stations to enclosures and even drive cages. In the past few years, we have looked at many solutions from ICYDOCK and today that continues with the ExpressCage line of drive cages.

Drive cages allow users to install multiples of drives into a single chassis bay, depending on how many drives you need ICYDOCK produces cages from as small as two bay solutions all the way up to eight bay with active cooling. The two and four bay cages we have in the lab today are from the ExpressCage line-up and feature both SATA and SAS connectivity with anti vibration mounting and easy access via the front. Compatibility extends to systems with available 5.25" drive bays and internal SATA connections.

MSRP of the ICYDOCK ExpressCage in two and four bay configuration is listed at $34.99 for the two bay and $44.99 for the four bay. Both feature a three-year warranty.

Packaging for the ExpressCage features a brown box with information across the bottom, a image of the cage is centered while the model number is at the bottom right.

Scope of delivery for each of the cages includes a manual and drive screws.

Looking a bit closer the Express cage is predominantly made of plastic, each tray houses a LED to denote activity, while the bottom of the housing is labelled to denote drive numbers.

The two bay ExpressCage houses an additional place for a 3.5" drive down below.

Switching to the back of the enclosure, we find a single SATA power connection supporting all four bays, while the data is configured through a pass-through configuration.

Above, we have a prerequisite test of our Intel 730 SSD with a straight connection to SATA III. As you can see, our drive is capable of 487 MB/s read and 503 MB/s write.

Moving our Intel drive over to the ICYDOCK ExpressCage, we found performance to be spot on. We still were able to achieve 486 MB/s read and 503 MB/s write.

Drive cages are solutions that enable us to install a massive amount of drives into our chassis. Both the two and four bay solutions seen here today are unique in that they lessen the clutter when building your own system as you no longer need a power cable for each drive. Build quality is good, with a large majority of the enclosures made out of plastic. The drive trays, while they work quite well, could use some refining, as they don't slide the greatest into the enclosure. The rear mounted cooling fan does pull a good amount of air through the enclosure, but at the same time gives the overall package an unfinished look; it would be nice to have it enclosed internally.

Performance was as expected, on par with our direct connection. We achieved 486 MB/s read and 503 MB/s write both installed in the ExpressCage and directly attached to our system. Overall, while the ExpressCage solutions do have some minor flaws, they do fit well in a chassis, remove clutter when building, and carry a good MSRP.

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Tesoro Announces The Thyrsus Optical MMO and MOBA Mouse With 6 Thumb Buttons
Tesoro Technology USA Inc., a manufacturer of high-tech gaming peripherals, announces the Thyrsus optical gaming mouse. Named after the staff of Dionysus, the Thyrsus features comfortable, ergonomic design, a high-precision optical sensor, and 6 fully programmable thumb buttons for MMO and MOBA games.

Instead of the ordinary 1 or 2 thumb buttons, the Tesoro Thyrsus has 6 buttons positioned for thumb control, making a total of 10 fully independent and programmable buttons. The 64Kb of onboard memory allows users to configure up to 5 gaming profiles, 35 macro keys and 1600 recordable actions. The Tesoro Thyrsus is easy to control in the new, specifically designed software. Gamers can adjust the DPI, polling rate up to 1000Hz, and the multicolor LED illumination as well as program the 6 thumb buttons.

Comfortable and Confident Control

Omron switch technology gives the Thyrsus added durability, tactile feedback and satisfying clicks. The ergonomic design and rubberized coating on both sides give maximum comfort and grip. Gamers can pick from 6 levels of sensitivity adjustable up to 8200dpi. Accuracy is assured with 150 ips (inches per second) motion detection and 30g acceleration. A braided, 2 meter gold-plated USB cable lends added durability and prevents fraying.

New Tesoro User Interface (UI)

The Thyrsus utilizes Tesoro's new UI which has been redesigned to be more user-friendly. Gamers can easily adjust the DPI, record macros, set profiles, and change the illumination color.

Technical specifications:

• 10 million click duty cycle Omron switches
• 6 levels of sensitivity adjustable up to 8200 dpi
• 64 KB Built-in Memory
• 6 fully programmable thumb buttons for MMO/MOBA
• Total of 10 fully programmable keys
• Full speed processor with 1000 Hz polling rate
• Customizable multicolor lighting
• Soft-touch finished surface
• 2 meter braided cable with gold plated USB plug
• 150 ips (Inches per Second) motion detection and 30 g acceleration
• New TESORO Thyrsus Software
• Model number: TS-H8L

MSRP and Availability

The Tesoro Thyrsus will be available this August in North America for the suggested retail price of $ 69.

For more information, visit the product page.

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