David Nicholson: March 2014

Monday, March 31, 2014

Square Enix rethinks triple-A focus; goes back to Japanese RPG roots

Square Enix*President Yosuke Matsuda says the company will make future games without focusing too much on their global aspect and appeal Square Enix tried to branch out with different triple-A game genres with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman: Absolution, the Tomb Raider reboot, and Thief. While half of those games earned critical acclaim, they did Read the full article...

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Singapore’s Blk 71 to be shifted to Sentosa; will be turned into a tech museum

Blk 71 will be shifted brick-by-brick to island resort*Sentosa. The new structure to come up in its place will have 71 levels to house 7,000 startups Within a month of announcing Block 73 and 79 as two new buildings to come alongside Block 71 to house startups, the government’s best-kept secret is out. Highly placed Read the full article...

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New dwarf planet gives a clearer picture of the outer Solar System

NASA remolds our image of the outer Solar System with the announcement of the discovery of a new dwarf planet.

Last week several observatories had confirmed reports of a newly discovered object outside the Solar System, which is technically as of now considered as the most distant object that is known to be in orbit around the Solar System.

The observed object was classified as a dwarf planet, designated as 2012 VP113. Dwarf planets are basically spherical celestial bodies with a sufficient gravity field that is within an orbiting path around a mother star, or on this case, our own sun. The discovery was coordinated by the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and Carnegie Institution in Washington, and the very existence of the dwarf planet itself may shed more light about the exact structure and composition of the Kuiper Belt, and perhaps even the Oort Cloud, the two outermost regions of the Solar System.

At its closest point in orbit, 2012 VP113 is about 80 AU (astronomical units), or about eighty times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. For comparison, Jupiter is about 5 AU, and most of the objects found in the Kuiper Belt are about 30-50 AU. Even Sedna, another trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2003, was still a little bit nearer to the sun in its closest orbit, which is around 76 AU. As of March 2014, the 2012 VP113 is the farthest object in our Solar System ever to have been definitively observed and studied.

The fact that dwarf planets such 2012 VP113 can exist reveals more about the exciting possibility that even larger objects exist just outside our local planetary neighborhood. As the researchers have suggested, some of the planets deep within the Oort Cloud might even be as big as the Earth, or probably even many times bigger. As of now however, we still don’t have the technology to observe these faint distant objects, so their discoveries may still have to wait for a few more years or decades.

Source: NASA

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Chief of Microsoft Studios’ Phil Spencer is now head of Xbox

The man who made centre stage appearances at Microsoft Xbox-related press conferences will helm entire Xbox business Gaming enthusiasts who kept tabs on the many appearances of Phil Spencer in Xbox-related press conferences and roundtables shouldn’t be so surprised at these recent turn of events. The official Xbox news site announced that the chief of Read the full article...

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Antec GX500 Case Review

Most people know Antec and their high quality Cases. In this review we look at the new Antec GX500 Case. It is a midi tower with many features and with a relatively low price tag.

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Display experts: "Samsung Galaxy S5's OLED display is the best we have ever tested"

Samsung doesn’t do everything right, but if there is one thing the company nails every time, it is their displays.

DisplayMate is the single most influential authority when it comes to assessing display quality, whether it is HD monitors, TVs, or – as in context of this blog post – mobile displays. They have just released their assessment of the display running the show for Samsung’s latest high-end smartphone – the Galaxy S5, and they call it the “best display [they] have ever tested.”

There are two key areas where the S5′s OLED display simply kills it.

The first is brightness. DisplayMate observed that the S5′s display is 22% brighter than the already bedazzling Galaxy S4 display. In high ambient light conditions, such as when the display is directly facing the sun, the S5′s display performs better than anything ever tested.

The second is color accuracy. Despite using an OLED display (the sort that are infamous of being vibrant, but oversaturated), the Galaxy S5 achieved ‘Excellent 2.2 JNCD’ – geekspeak for highest color accuracy in any smartphone or tablet.

From DisplayMate:

Based on our extensive Lab tests and measurements, the Galaxy S5 is the Best performing Smartphone display that we have ever tested. It has a long list of new records for best Smartphone display performance including: Highest Brightness, Lowest Reflectance, Highest Color Accuracy, Infinite Contrast Ratio, Highest Contrast Rating in Ambient Light, and smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle. The Galaxy S5 has raised the bar for top display performance up by another notch – an impressive achievement for OLED technology!

There is no doubt in my mind that manufacturers will jump to 2.5K resolution (2560×1440) in the next couple of years, but at least for me, the competition on increasing pixel density ended in 2012 when HD displays with 300+ ppi densities became the norm. It is nice to see companies focusing on other, equally (if not more so) important factors affecting display quality.

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Dual boot iOS solution to be released soon

Popular iOS hacker @winocm has announced that he will soon release a dual boot iOS solution,*allowing users to easily switch between iOS 6 and iOS 7.

With iOS 6 Apple made it very hard to downgrade firmware back to an old iOS version which meant that people who updated to a new firmware often lost their jailbreaks because one hadn’t been developed for the firmware. Back in the day it was easy to go back to an old version, but not anymore.

That’s not all. Certain jailbreak tweaks and applications only work with previous versions of the firmware. Users who used to rely upon such software can’t get it on the latest firmware, and there’s no official method of going back to an old firmware like iOS 6.*Recently @winocm posted a video online of an iPad triple-booting into multiple versions of iOS. The hacked tablet was capable of booting up and running iOS 5.1, and then effortlessly switching to iOS 6.1.3 and iOS 7.0.6.

He was asked on Twitter if he has any plans of releasing this dual boot solution. @winocm replied in the affirmative, though he did add that the “first revision will not be user friendly at all.”*The dual boot solution will make it easier for users who wish to roll back to an older firmware, but still keep doors open for the latest firmware. It will also let them use apps and tweaks not compatible with iOS 7.

@winocm recently also posted a video online of an iOS 7.1 untethered jailbreak on iPhone 4. Its unclear when that jailbreak is going to be released. Since the iPhone 4′s bootrom exploit can be leveraged, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with an iOS 7.1 untethered jailbreak for it. As far as newer devices are concerned, it may take a while before a jailbreak is achieved.

Getting 10Gbps home fiber connections by 2015 sounds great, but…

What’s the worst that could happen? Here’s a look into this new technology by the name of XGPON or 10GPON Earlier this month, Telkom Akses announced its 10Gbps Internet infrastructure project. The wholly owned subsidiary of Telkom plans to link up 20 million homes to the internet using fiber optic cables, unifying its currently diversified Read the full article...

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Ghost Recon Phantoms’ producer on standing out in a shooter crowd

Ubisoft Singapore producer explains the upcoming shooter’s new changes and various ways it differentiates itself from competition Ubisoft’s online third-person team-based shooter Ghost Recon Phantoms has come a long way from its alpha state back in 2011, to the point where producer Corey Facteau and the Ubisoft Singapore team justified a title change from its Read the full article...

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DeltaViet wants to raise US$30,000 to reach 1.6 million users

Co-founders of*Vietnam’s e-learning platform talk about raising funds, expansion plans and entering the B2B space, among other things In a bid to support Vietnam’s rising young population, Minh Nguyen first set up DeltaViet, a social network for members supporting each other’s personal development, in 2009. The site grew to 100,000 users, but was later shut Read the full article...

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The Toad @ JFDI Day 7: Education too boring? Say hello to Wikasa

Meet Rama Manusama, the CEO of Wikasa as he talks about his motivation behind the startup and how it is blooming to its full potential with JFDI Another week, another Monday. One of the trending topics today on Twitter is ‘Monday Blues’. So to kill off the monotony, why don’t you read about a passionate Read the full article...

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Carmack says Facebook buyout of Oculus VR was natural evolution of the medium

Oculus VR CTO and id Software co-founder says that Facebook sees “the big picture” in VR.

Oculus VR’s CTO John Carmack — the most prolific figure in the company — has come out defending the Facebook buyout of his company.

Responding to a blog post by chiptune musician Peter Berkman, Carmack said he “wasn’t expecting Facebook” to be the one buying out Oculus VR but said it was only natural for Titan-sized technology companies to be moving into VR.

“The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable, and the real questions were how deeply to partner, and with who,” Carmack wrote, likely referring to Sony’s recent announcement of its plans to get into the VR space with its own headset.

Carmack said that the deal’s announcement came as a surprise, as the week prior he had been chatting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the topic had not been broached.

Part of the criticism that has arisen from the Facebook deal revolves around the company’s data mining and advertising heavy business model. But this doesn’t concern Carmack, as he says it’s important for companies to pay attention to their customers.

“The idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me,” he wrote. “I rather like the recommendations that Amazon gives me on each visit. Educate me. What terrible outcome is expected from this?”

Carmack also addressed the other half of the criticism surrounding the deal, which is that early backers of the project were burned because they received no dividend payout (for more on why an equity-based crowdfunding system is needed read this).

There is a case to be made for being like Valve, and trying to build a new VR ecosystem from the ground up,” he wrote. “This is probably what most of the passionate fans wanted to see. The difference is that, for years, the industry thought Valve was nuts, and they had the field to themselves.”

Facebook has yet to announce plans on what it wants to do with Oculus VR.

Source:*Peter Berkman (blog)

The Moto G Forte could be a slightly upgraded Moto G successor

A leaked photo suggests the Moto G Forte could be headed to emerging markets, possibly with upgraded hardware over the Moto G.

The Moto G has been a huge success for Motorola, especially in emerging markets, and the company could be looking to bank on that success with a new variant dubbed the Moto G Forte.

According to notorious leakster @evleaks, the Moto G Forte could be headed to Latin America in the coming weeks. No details on the hardware accompany the leak, but it’s possible Motorola could be looking at fixing the (very) few shortcomings of the Moto G, namely the lack of a microSD card slot, a feature that is in high demand in emerging markets where slow internet speeds and costly data plans remove the viability of depending on the cloud for data storage.*

However, all that is only speculation, so we’ll have to wait for more details to break cover. The specs will likely remain the same, which wouldn’t be a bad thing considering the Moto G already offers more bang for buck than one would expect from the $179 price tag. To recap, these specs include a 4.5-inch 720p display, 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM, 5-megapixel rear camera, 8/16GB of non-expandable storage, a 2,100 mAh battery, and a near stock version of Android 4.4 KitKat.

Via: Android Beat | Source: Twitter

Big Data analytics service QSearch wins Echelon Taiwan Satellite 2014

Get a better click-through rate with Facebook Ads. This startup might just be your solution to reaching the correct crowd Israeli American professor Dan Ariely once said, “Big Data is like teen sex. Everybody is talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.” But it seems Read the full article...

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Apple reportedly tried poaching Swiss talent to aid iWatch development

A new report claims Apple went after employees of major Swiss watchmakers, but it looks like they weren’t interested.

Switzerland is the leader in the global watchmaking market and they are known the world over for the fine and luxurious watches that they create. It isn’t totally impossible to comprehend why Apple might be going after Swiss talent for its much rumored iWatch.

A new report by the Financial Times claims that Apple has gone after employees for Swiss watchmakers. Apparently the company has even tried forging partnerships with watchmakers, but they don’t seem to be willing to play ball. Apple is said to have reached out to several such companies, and most of them are believed to be not interested by its advances.

Nick Hayek, Swatch CEO, confirmed that the watchmaker has had talks with several companies about wearable devices, adding that they’re not interesting in forging a partnership.*Hayek also says that Swatch never initiated discussions, and it sees no reason to enter into a partnership. His reluctance to go down this road is primarily to protect Swatch’s advancements in longevity, battery life and ergonomic design.

Luxury group LVMH’s president of Watches and Jewelry Jean-Claude Biver has claimed that Apple tried poaching employees from the group’s Hublot brand. Apple is said to have gone after employees of manufacturers who make precision parts for these luxury watches. Biver told a Swiss publication that Apple contacted employees and that he has seen the emails personally. He also claimed that all those who were contacted by Apple refused to jump ship.

There have been countless rumors about the iWatch but so far nothing concrete has materialized. Apple itself hasn’t said anything about its wearable device plans as yet, though CEO Tim Cook did say earlier this year that the company has plans to enter into new product categories.

Source: Financial Times

Microsoft reverses stance on email snooping

New process would hand the investigation over to law enforcement to obtain the appropriate warrants to proceed.

Earlier this month Microsoft announced that as part of an investigation into a rogue ex-employee leaking Windows 8 to a tech blogger it had gone into the blogger’s Hotmail account to collect evidence against the employee. While questions loomed about the legality of such a practice (and the court admissibility of collected evidence), Microsoft initially defended the practice. Now, in an about-face, Microsoft has substantially modified its policy on the matter.

In a Friday blog post, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, outlined the changes to the policy which were done after consultations with advocacy groups:

“Effective immediately, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property from Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves. Instead, we will refer the matter to law enforcement if further action is required. In addition to changing company policy, in the coming months we will incorporate this change in our customer terms of service, so that it’s clear to consumers and binding on Microsoft.”

Though Microsoft has come out on the side of privacy after a little coercion, as Wired points out Google still defends its policy of email snooping under exceptional circumstances.

“While our terms of service might legally permit such access, we have never done this and it’s hard for me to imagine circumstances where we would investigate a leak in that way,” Google’s general counsel, Kent Walker, wrote in an emailed statement to Wired .

While Google and Microsoft might defend their respective email snooping schemes as legal, neither has been tested in court for legality. A good barometer of the policy’s legality will be if Google does a Microsoft-like about face if pressure ramps up, in order to avoid legal action.

Source: Microsoft

Fancy a chance to work in Hong Kong’s bustling startup scene?

Apart from a vibrant finance hub, Hong Kong boasts a thriving tech and startup community. Now, with these jobs, you can be part of it too Think of Hong Kong, and one naturally thinks of its status as one of Asia’s premier finance hubs, home to entrepreneurial success stories like Li Ka-Shing. We see no Read the full article...

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Google lends name to Korean mobile startups to avoid costly “Kakao tax”

Move by Google will enable Korean mobile startups to avoid the Kakao platform, which takes a cut of 21 percent off of their revenue Korea has long been a brand-obsessed shopping nation. Now Google aims to assist up-and-coming app developers gain brand presence in the burgeoning Korean market, lending their brand clout to new entries Read the full article...

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[Singapore] 20 Hottest Startups of 2014 Panel Briefing

Learn the latest on startups funding, winning strategies, trends and e-commerce on April 16. Register now! Synopsis: Learn the latest on startups funding, winning strategies, trends and e-commerce on April 16, 2014 at InterContinental Singapore from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. Passes cost SG$95 each so register now as we have limited seats available. Panelists: Read the full article...

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Japanese smartphone gaming market worth US$5.4 billion in 2013

The numbers are a big leap from 2012′s sales value of US$2.99 billion. It is*projected that the market would reach US$8.1 billion*by 2016 With Japanese mobile title Puzzle & Dragons*by GungHo Online*doing so well overseas, it’s easy to assume that the game did contribute immensely in its place of origin.*According to a CyberAgent analysis via Read the full article...

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