OUYA users can now get $50 off Razer Forge TV Controller Bundle, $10 in Cortex credit
Razer’s acquisition of OUYA is set to bring plenty of changes. The OUYA console that once created much fanfare over at Kickstarter is now being phased out, but it will live on through Razer’s Forge TV Android-based console. With that in mind, what are all those current OUYA users to do to keep their gaming experience relevant?
Razer has thought about this and now they are making the transition easier on customers by offering current OUYA gamers a $50 discount towards the purchase of a Razer Forge TV Controller Bundle. Razer currently sells this set for $149.99. The deal would bring the price down to $99.99. In addition, Razer will be giving all users a $10 credit to buy apps and games from Cortex, the company’s new app store.
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This Android TV console does revolve mostly around gaming. While there is a keyboard and other accessories available, Razer is really adamant about people using their controller (which is a great one, by the way). There is also support for up to 4 gamepads, so the gaming sessions are bound to get real serious.
There is one caveat here, though. The deal is not really available to everyone. Customers have to be a current OUYA owners, and must wait for an email to hit their inboxes before becoming eligible.
We would say this is certainly a good deal on one of the best Android TV devices out there. Razer is always sure to remind us that its products are “for gamers, by gamers”, and the Forge TV is no exception. Powered by a Snapdragon 805 processor, an Adreno 420 GPU and 2 GB of RAM, this set-top box has enough power to run any mobile game.
Have any of you guys gotten this email yet? Are you signing up for the Razer Forge TV Controller Bundle? Hit the comments and let us know!
Kim Dotcom could face extradition to the US
Kim Dotcom, essentially the Motion Picture Association of America and Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s de facto prime target, and his colleagues actually can be extradited to the United States to face copyright charges according to a judicial ruling. However, don’t expect the man behind Megaupload to appear stateside anytime soon. As The New Zealand Herald, Dotcom’s local news publication, tells it, the internet mogul has 15 days to appeal or apply for a writ of habeas corpus (produce the body) and it looks like his legal defense team is already taking care of that. In addition to copyright infringement, he faces charges for racketeering and money laundering as well. The BBC reports that he owes domestic authorities somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million.
Dotcom’s legal team naturally feels that the current ruling doesn’t suffice, and the man himself has an eye on moving the case to his adopted country’s high court, while The BBC also notes that he’s going to sue the Hong Kong justice department (he founded Megaupload in China) for some $2 billion for taking the site offline.
Thank you for your support. The fight goes on. Enjoy the holidays. I'm happy to be with my kids. There are bigger things than copyright 
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) December 23, 2015
The Associated Press says that should he and his colleagues be found guilty, they’re looking at “decades” of imprisonment. The publication goes on to say that this wasn’t a case for actually proving guilt or innocence, but where or not Uncle Sam could actually prosecute the man. It also notes that this case brings some bigger queries to light regarding how far the boundaries of United States law extend when it comes to the internet, and that this could affect how internet companies handle the sharing of copyrighted content.
For his part Dotcom seems disaffected by the entire situation. He recently tweeted that he’s happy to be with his children over the holidays and that they’re more important than any pending litigation. For an altogether different, jovial look at Dotcom than what you might have in mind, check out the Vice video below where he’s found singing, playing GTA Online and giving a tour of his New Zealand compound.
Source: The New Zealand Herald, The BBC, The Associated Press
Feds arrest hacker for stealing scripts, celeb identities and sex tapes
The Department of Homeland Security has arrested and charged (PDF) a man from the Bahamas for stealing unreleased movie/TV scripts along with celebrities’ files and sensitive information. According to The New York Times, the 23-year-old hacker named Alonzo Knowles contacted a radio host in an effort to sell his loot, which included the scripts for six episodes of a hit drama currently being filmed. When the unnamed host got in touch with Homeland Security, the agency cooked up a sting operation and had him put Knowles in touch with an undercover investigator posing as a buyer. Although the operation has not been publicly linked with any previously known hacking, it immediately calls to mind the stolen celebrity photos and information that were released late last year, as well as private information leaked by the people who hacked Sony Pictures.
The accused allegedly tried to sell the agent 15 scripts and the social security numbers of two athletes and a movie actress for $80,000. He also showed the agent a sex tape, saying that it’s merely a “sample of things [he] can get” — he had “more stuff along these lines and can get more” if the buyer was interested.
Knowles would hack into celebrities’ emails to look for juicy details to steal, the court documents posted by NYT said. He reportedly admitted to the undercover agent that when it was too difficult to hack a particular celebrity, he would look at pictures online to see who his friends are and then hack them instead. He’d also send fake automated text messages telling recipients that their accounts had been hacked, and some people actually replied with their passwords. Other times, he’d send a virus to celebrities’ computers to infiltrate their systems.
By using all those techniques, Knowles reportedly gained access to 130 email addresses. From those accounts, he managed to pilfer all kinds of details and data other than scripts, such as explicit images and even the future album of a famous A-list celebrity. Prosecutors have charged him with felony criminal copyright infringement and identity theft, which both have a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Source: The New York Times (1), (2), NBC New York
New Google messaging service will be smarter than its competitors
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Everybody is currently playing on a level playing field in the instant messaging space and it’s going to take something pretty innovative to stand out from everyone else – something which Google thinks its gotten its hands on. According to the Wall Street Journal, a new Google messaging service is being developed that will use some artificial intelligence paired with its instant messaging roots to provide a service that will rival any competitors – the idea is that this service would answer questions and requests in instant messages. If the idea sounds familiar to the Facebook M service, that’s because it’s pretty much the same thing, except that Google intends for its service to be completely autonomous, making use of chatbots to interpret requests in messages.
And of course, thanks to Google’s formidable artificial intelligence technology, it’s likely that Google’s take on such a messaging service would be superior in quite a few ways:
“For its new service, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., plans to integrate chatbots, software programs that answer questions inside a messaging app, the people familiar with the matter said. Users will be able to text friends or a chatbot, which will scour the Web and other sources for information to answer a question, those people said.”
Of course, Facebook is already testing its version of this service right now, so Google has to move quite swiftly despite no timetable being detailed. Whenever it does become available, however, expect the instant messaging landscape to change once again.
What do you think about a new Google messaging service? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Wall Street Journal via Droid-life
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Flightsharing website closes due to court ruling
DC’s Court of Appeals has decided to uphold the FAA’s ban on flightsharing websites, forcing Flytenow to shut down indefinitely. If you recall, the FAA announced last year that it’s not cool with services that connect amateur pilots that have no commercial licenses with passengers willing to pay for flights. One of those Uber-in-the-sky services called Flytenow asked the court to overturn the FAA’s ban, but it has obviously failed to sway the judge in its favor.
According to the FAA’s rules, private pilots with no commercial licenses are allowed to take on passengers, but they can only split the costs for a flight. They also can’t advertise for passengers on services like Flytenow — they can only take friends, or maybe spread the news by word-of-mouth and via a more private means online.
In the company’s farewell blog post, it said:
In the Opinion of the Court, Judge Pillard held that pilots sharing expenses on Flytenow were engaged in common carriage, making them the only common carriers (i.e., commercial airliners) in history to not seek a profit.
The current state of the law is extremely deferential to regulatory actions, at the expense of innovation. The Court relied on that regulatory deference, and the result is less choice for consumers, and less innovation in general aviation.
The company says its legal team is looking into introducing a bill in Congress in an effort to change the rules altogether. For now, however, Flytenow remains grounded.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Flytenow
Watch 58 years of space debris appear in 1 minute
You probably know that the proliferation of space junk is a real problem, but we won’t blame you if you have a tough time wrapping your head around the concept. There are roughly 20,000 fragments up there, after all. However, university lecturer Stuart Grey is willing to help. He recently posted a 1-minute video that shows the accumulation of junk from 1957, when Sputnik first flew, through to 2015. As the clip shows, the amount of debris grows in fits and starts. While there were several thousand objects for quite a while, missile tests and satellite collisions added thousands more fragments to the mix.
If you’ve seen Gravity, you’ll know the danger these loose items represent. Typically, those objects are hurtling around Earth at more than 17,000MPH — all it’d take is a miscalculated route to put astronauts and satellites in serious jeopardy. Some of them are large, too. Unless there’s a concerted effort to clean up this mess, spacefarers will have to be increasingly cautious.
Via: Science
Source: Stuart Grey (YouTube)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 will power the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4
Qualcomm just recently made a statement about renaming their 618 and 620 chips to now be called 650 and 652. They said they did this because the chips were much better than the others in the same line and needed greater number names to show that.
At the time of that announcement there were no phones with the new chips inside them. However, we have reason to believe that the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4 will be the first device to feature the new chips. GFXBench testing has revealed the device will have a 5.5-inch 1080 display, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 16MP camera, Adreno 510 GPU, and a Snapdragon 652 octa-core 1.8GHz CPU.
The benchmarks also show that the OneTouch Idol 4 will produce a 5.5 fps frame rate on the Car Chase offline test. This beats many other phones like the HTC One M9, Yu Yutopia, Sony Xperia Z3+, and others. They scored 5.1 fps or lower.
Source: GFXBench
Via: PhoneArena
Come comment on this article: Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 will power the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4
LeTV Max Pro might come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition
The LeTV Max Pro is definitely shaping up to be a heavy hitter. With a 5.5-inch QHD display, 4GB of RAM, and 21MP camera it is already pretty good. However, new leaks are suggesting it will also come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition.
No word on exact shipping dates, but the Max Pro is said to have an official announcement at LeTV’s pre-CES press conference. The time is at 11:30AM on January 5th in Las Vegas.
Source: MyDrivers
Via: GSMArena
Come comment on this article: LeTV Max Pro might come with an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and iris recognition
The Beatles Are Coming to Apple Music on Christmas Eve
The full music collection of The Beatles will be available on Apple Music and other music streaming services on Christmas Eve, according to a new report from Re/code. The report comes a week after a similar report from Billboard, which said that The Beatles were coming to a streaming service on Christmas Eve but did not specify which one.
The world’s most famous band will finally be available on streaming music services, starting this Thursday, Christmas Eve. And they’ll be available very, very widely: Industry sources say that the Fab Four’s music will be on all of the obvious music services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Tidal, as well as some you might not expect, including Amazon’s Prime Music.
The only music service that won’t have full access to The Beatles’ catalog is Pandora, which doesn’t do direct deals with music owners. However, Pandora does offer some access to select Beatles songs on its web radio service. Additionally, The Beatles’ catalog will also be available on music services’ free tiers, unlike artists like Taylor Swift.
The Beatles’ catalog originally appeared on iTunes back in 2010, giving Apple exclusive rights to the digital distribution of the famous band’s music until 2011. More recently, “The Beatles: +1” collection debuted on iTunes, packaged with remastered versions of hit songs and mini-movies made by the famous quartet.
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NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1 owners can get a free ‘Fallout’ lunchbox
NVIDIA is giving away lunchboxes to owners of the SHIELD Tablet K1 to celebrate the release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow on its flagship tablet.
Fallout Shelter fans & SHIELD tablet K1 owners – free bundle of 5 lunchboxes – Redeem codes: https://t.co/giFBMeltWR https://t.co/k4U43K9KpI
— NVIDIA SHIELD (@nvidiashield) December 22, 2015
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According to the official NVIDIA SHIELD Twitter account, the first 50,000 people to redeem codes available on the company’s site will get a bundle of five lunchboxes, all of which are Fallout Shelter-themed.
Source: NVIDIA
Come comment on this article: NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet K1 owners can get a free ‘Fallout’ lunchbox
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