74086131
submission
MojoKid writes:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn't the only one envisioning a world where artificially intelligent systems rise up and rule over mankind. Dr. Stuart Armstrong, an academic at the Future of Humanity at Oxford University feels we're precariously close to creating computers that will ultimately wipe out mankind, though if it comes as any consolation, they'll have good intentions. The future Dr. Armstrong envisions is one where machines have an incredible amount of computing power, and they'll be able to access all that information at speeds that would boggle the human mind. These machines will become so smart and sophisticated that they'll create their own global network to communicate with each other without the aid of pesky humans, who would only slow them down. This will mark the beginning of the end. At some point, Dr. Armstrong sees these super intelligent machines doing something incredibly dumb because of nuances in human communication. For example, a command such as "keep humans safe and happy" might prompt this network of machines to "entomb everyone in concrete coffins on heroin drips," Dr. Armstrong says.
74057853
submission
MojoKid writes:
No matter what your opinion is of Steve Wozniak, there is little doubt he's one of the most influential people in the history of Personal Computing. Often times noted for making bold enthusiastic claims, especially when it comes to the advancement of technology in every day life, Woz may have stepped slightly off the deep end in a recent interview where he projected the advancement of AI (Artificial Intelligence) so capable that it would be smarter than humans and eventually turn us into pets of the Internet of Things. Woz also joked, "I got this idea a few years ago and so I started feeding my dog filet steak and chicken every night because, do unto others." The projection was made for hundreds of years in the future and Woz doesn't necessarily view it as a bad thing because he feels AI would want to take care of us and "make things nice for humans."
74035397
submission
MojoKid writes:
Psychologists at the University of Exeter and Cardiff University have published a study that demonstrates how a simple computer game can help people lose weight. Participants in the study who played the specialized game lost and average of 1.5 pounds in the first seven days, and 4.5 pounds after six months. They also reduced their daily caloric consumption by 220 calories. Dr. Natalia Lawrence led the team of researchers that developed the computer game for the study. It was designed to train people to resist unhealthy food snack foods through a "stop versus go" process. Participants sat in front of a Pentium 3 PC running Matlab software on a 17-inch monitor. They were then instructed to press certain keys when images of things like fruits and clothes would appear, indicating a "go." But for images of calorie-dense foods (chips and cake, for example) they were instructed not to do anything, indicating a "stop" action.
73968383
submission
MojoKid writes:
The ThinkPad brand has been around for a long time; the first model was introduced by IBM way back in 1992. And although technological advances over the past two decades have lead to Lenovo ThinkPads that are lighter, much faster, and highly more cable than any model in the early 1990s could have ever imagined, there's still a clear visual link between yesteryear and today with regards to design cues. Well, apparently, Lenovo is seriously toying with the idea of making a "unique" model that would incorporate some of the strong ThinkPad language that has been erased in recent years. "Imagine a blue enter key, 7 row classic keyboard, 16:10 aspect ratio screen, multi-color ThinkPad logo, dedicated volume controls, rubberized paint, exposed screws, lots of status LEDs, and more. Think of it like stepping into a time machine and landing in 1992, but armed with today's technology." It might not be for everyone but some execs at Lenovo think there might be a market for it.
73910843
submission
MojoKid writes:
Earlier this month, Microsoft offered more details and availability information for their forthcoming Surface Hub system. With pre-orders starting July 1st, these 55-inch or 84-inch machines offer a new collaborative version of the Surface experience, for businesses, scientists, education and perhaps power user consumers. As far as the hardware goes, the Surface Hub is based on an Intel mobile platform with a 4th Generation Intel Core mobile processor (Haswell) with integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600 on the 55-inch model and NVIDIA Quadro K2200 mobile graphics powering the 84-inch version. There are also a number of sensors on board the Surface Hub, including infrared, imaging and depth of field sensors, as well as two built-in wide-angle HD cameras. The live demo here shows the Surface Hub in action at Microsoft's Envisioning Center in Chicago. The new systems aren't set to ship until September but the pre-release model MS was showing seemed pretty solid and very responsive to multi-touch input and collaboration.
73826277
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD announced new Radeon R9 and R7 300 series of graphics cards earlier this week, and while they are interesting, they're not nearly as impressive as AMD's upcoming flagship of AMD GPU, code named Fiji. Fiji will find its way into three products this summer: the Radeon R9 Nano, Radeon R9 Fury, and the range-topping (and water-cooled) Radeon R9 Fury X. Other upcoming variants like, AMD's dual-Fiji board, were teased at E3 but are still under wraps. However, while full reviews are still under embargo, the official specification of the Radeon R9 Fury X have been revealed, along with an array of benchmark scores comparing the GPU to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Should the numbers AMD has released jibe with independent testing, the Radeon R9 Fury X looks strong and possibly faster than Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980 Ti.
73786077
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD announced new Radeon R9 and R7 300 series of graphics cards earlier this week, and while they are interesting, they're not nearly as impressive as AMD's upcoming flagship of AMD GPU, code named Fiji. Fiji will find its way into three products this summer: the Radeon R9 Nano, Radeon R9 Fury, and the range-topping (and water-cooled) Radeon R9 Fury X. Other upcoming variants like AMD's dual-Fiji board were teased at E3 but are still under wraps. While full reviews are still under embargo, the official specification of the Radeon R9 Fury X have been revealed, along with an array of benchmark scores comparing the GPU to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Should the numbers AMD has released jibe with independent reviews, the Fury X looks very strong.
73770251
submission
bigwophh writes:
AMD announced new Radeon R9 and R7 300 series of graphics cards earlier this week, and while they are interesting, there are nowhere as titillating as the upcoming flagship of AMD GPUs: Fiji. Fiji will find its way into three distinct products this summer: the Radeon R9 Nano, Radeon R9 Fury, and the range-topping (and water-cooled) Radeon R9 Fury X. And we can’t forget other upcoming variants like the dual-Fiji board that was teased at E3. While full reviews are still under embargo, the official specification of the R9 Fury X have been revealed, along with an array of benchmark scores comparing the GPU to NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 980 Ti. Should the numbers AMD has released jibe with independent reviews, the Fury X looks very strong.
73764417
submission
bigwophh writes:
A study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior suggests that watching videos of cats may be good for your health. The study pinged nearly 7,000 people and asked them how viewing cat videos affected their moods. Of those surveyed, over a third (36 percent) described themselves as a "cat person" and nearly two-thirds (60 percent) said they have an affinity for both dogs and cats. Survey subjects noted less tendencies towards feeling anxious, sad, or annoyed after watching cat videos, including times when they viewed the videos while at work or trying to study. They also reported feeling more energetic and more positive afterwards. There may have been some guilt from putting off work or studying to watch Internet videos, but the amusement they got from seeing the antics of cats more than made up for it.
73703709
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD hosted an event today for the tech press to announce new graphics solutions ranging from the bottom to the top ($99 on up to $649). First up is the new range of R7 300 Series cards that is aimed squarely at gamers that AMD says are typically running at 1080p. For gamers that want a little bit more power, there's the new R9 300 Series (just think of them as R9 280s with higher clocks and 8GB of memory). Finally, AMD delivered today with the official announcement of its Fiji graphics cards that feature onboard High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), offering 3x the performance-per-watt of GDDR5. Fiji has 1.5x the performance-per-watt of the R9 290X, and was built with a focus on 4K gaming. The chip itself features 4096 stream processor and is comprised of 8.9 billion transistors. It has a graphics core clock of 1050MHz and is rated at an astonishing 8.6 TFLOPs. And thanks to its lower power consumption through the use of HBM and efficiency in its GPU design, there will be plenty of overhead for overclocking. Fiji will initially be available in two variants: the Radeon R9 Fury (air cooled) and the Radeon R9 Fury X (water-cooled). The Radeon R9 Fury will go on sale July 14 for $549 while the Radeon Fury X (1.5x performance-per-watt of a Radeon R9 290X) will be available June 24 for $649. Finally, AMD also took the opportunity to showcase its "Project Quantum," which is a small form-factor PC that manages to cram in not one, but two Fiji GPUs. The processor, GPUs, and all other hardware is incorporated into the bottom of the chassis, while the cooling solution is integrated into the top of the case.
73678263
submission
MojoKid writes:
Today, Microsoft announced that later this year, it will be releasing what could be the "ultimate" Xbox and Windows game controller. Called Xbox Elite Wireless, this gamepad has a dramatically overhauled D-pad and four paddles underneath. Other features that make this gamepad special: there are trigger locks, the ability to customize thumbstick sensitivity, along with the level of travel for the top triggers. In addition, it also sports swappable components, like the paddles, etc. Pricing has been announced at $149 and given just how advanced this gamepad is over the original, it's understandable but still pretty steep.
73582353
submission
MojoKid writes:
Asus recently launched their Android Lollipop-driven ZenFone 2 and with its Intel Atom Z3580 SoC with PowerVR graphics and 4GB of RAM. It's an interesting low cost alternative to the major flagship smartphones on the market. Its 5.5-inch Full HD display looks great and build quality is surprisingly high with minimalistic styling and a rear-mounted volume rocker and power button setup much like the LG G4. It also supports dual SIM functionality and handles surprisingly well in the benchmarks and general use. Though its Atom chip doesn't break any records, it offers middle of the pack graphics performance, solid standard compute throughput but feels nimble and responsive with 4GB of RAM minimizing lag. For the price of a 16GB model at $199 and a 64GB variant at $299, it's definitely one to consider, especially for those looking for an unlocked, contract commitment-free Android smartphone.
73534061
submission
MojoKid writes:
Most gaming notebooks, even boat anchor-class desktop replacements, would struggle to offer gaming performance competitive with the average gaming desktop PC. However, Dell's Alienware division decided to take a different approach to the problem of enabling sufficient graphics horsepower via a standard 15-inch laptop form factor. The recently launched Alienware 15 is a fairly stout 7 pound machine in its own right, with a GeForce GTX 970M mobile GPU on board, but connect it to Alienware's custom Graphics Amplifier box and the machine quickly converts into a system capable of desktop level gaming performance up to 4K resolution. Connected over an external PCI Express cable, the Graphics Amplifier allows essentially any standard desktop graphics card to handle the rendering workload sort of like a gaming docking station on steroids. In the benchmarks, with a desktop GeForce GTX 980 card pushing the pixels, it was easily the fastest notebook tested, as expected with its unfair advantage. Pricing-wise, the Graphics Amplifer box brings a $600 up-charge to a base config as tested with a dual-core 3.5GHz CPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB HDD, 128GB SSD and GeForce GTX 970M on-board GPU for $1499. That said, you're better off going with an available quad-core Core i7 config, if you want to keep the external GPU fed optimally.
73400877
submission
MojoKid writes:
Your digital voice assistant app is incompetent. Yes, Siri can give you a list of Italian restaurants in the area, Cortana will happily look up the weather, and Google Now will send a text message, if you ask it to. But compared to Hound, the newest voice search app on the block, all three of the aforementioned assistants might as well be bumbling idiots trying to outwit a fast talking rocket scientist. At its core, Hound is the same type of app — you bark commands or ask questions about any number of topics and it responds intelligently. And quickly. What's different about Hound compared to Siri, Cortana, and Google Now is that it's freakishly fast and understands complex queries that would have the others hunched in the fetal position, thumb in mouth. Check out the demo. It's pretty impressive.
73371089
submission
Deathspawner writes:
Despite all of its competition, Valve's Steam service remains the most popular digital PC game store around. While Steam does do a lot of things right, it can sometimes stumble in the worst of ways. Look no further than April's Skyrim mod debacle as a good example. Well, just as Valve fixed up that issue, it's gone ahead and fixed another: it's making refunds dead simple. While refunds have been possible in the past, it's required gamers to jump through hoops to get them. Now, Valve has set certain criteria, and if it's met, a refund will be granted, no questions asked — a definite step in the right direction.
