Nintendo's Next Gen Console, What do we know?

      So Nintendo is going to be bringing us another game platform and although we don't know much, we know enough to start getting an idea of what they have in store.
     First, the news that Nintendo will make smartphone games was a bombshell on the community as no one has ever though of Nintendo as a mobile game maker, but it does offer some promising ideas with how well they have been able to do with their handheld Nintendo DS.

     However, the bigger bombshell that they announced in the same week was the new platform they plan to create, which is codenamed NX and is set to unveil in 2016.
     Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated that the announcement should be viewed as "proof that Nintendo remains strong enthusiast for the dedicated game system business." and added during a Q&A session "I wanted to communicate that Nintendo will be progressing with videogame-dedicated devices with a passion." and that "We wanted to make it clear that Nintendo will continue with that as our core business."





     After that Nintendo refuses to say much more about the NX other than it will be built as a "brand new concept." So with a massive amount of room for speculation we can think of a plethora of things that Nintendo could be doing. However, looking at Nintendo's history I'm sure we can all be excited about what they could bring to the table. In addition their unification of hardware divisions in 2013 due to "vast technological advances, it became possible to achieve a fair degree of architectural integration." In other words cross-platforming is becoming easier and should be one of their concentrations.
     This was shown with the creation of the WiiU how Nintendo wanted to start combining the idea, and according to Iwata "It will become important for us to accurately take advantage of what we have done with the Wii U architecture. It of course does not mean that we are going to use exactly the same architecture as Wii U, but we are going to create a system that can absorb the Wii U architecture adequately, When this happens, home consoles and handheld devices will no longer be completely different, and they will become like brother in a family of systems."

     When trying to interpret all that Iwata is telling us, we realize he wishes to merge home and portable systems while "absorbing the Wii U architecture." So this gives the idea of a portable system that will share a common platform to the Wii U. This makes us think that this could lead us to not only one new console, but also a new handheld as well. We are hopeful for what Nintendo has to offer us in the future and what they really seem to stress is Nintendo is going nowhere and continue their legacy for the years to come.

Amazon Gets Permission for Delivery Drone Testing

     Finally, we may all start seeing Amazon drones overhead as of March 19th, 2015 after Amazon had threatened to take their business overseas the FAA has issued them an "experimental airworthiness certificate" 

After Amazon had announced it's drone plans in December 2013, it seemed that the FAA regulations would not allow this to be a reality though. A year later in 2014 Amazon then threatens to move its operations overseas. The FAA had not made any progress on the matter until just recently when last month it published a proposal with new rules which would help legalize commercial drone flight, and have granted a number of exemptions to other companies that wanted to begin field testing with flying robots.
     These new rules however, including the exemption granted to Amazon today, require the drones remain within line of sight of the pilot at all times, and in Amazon's case the driver must also have "a private pilot's certificate and current medical certification" and although these restrictions will allow for initial testing, it is hard to picture how they would ever be able to go commercial with the severely limited distance available.

     It is extremely promising that they are working together now or at least trying to. So we will have to see what Amazon's drone project has in store.

Snapchat Videos and Pictures Stored on Snapsave third-party website released.

     Pictures and videos of up to 200,000 people posted on snap-chat and stored on Snapsaved.com have been put online, supposedly posted by the same people who were behind the nude celebrity photos being released in August. These photos and videos were accessed after users of snapchat created a site that allowed users to save their photos and use the snapchat service from their desktop computers. This site is snapsave.com which allows users to upload photos and communicate with other snapchat users without having to be on their mobile device. This site seems to have been created maliciously as it has supposedly been saving and stealing snapchat users login information both username and password.

engadget.com

     By obtaining usernames and passwords through the site they could then become authorized to access Snapchat's servers and send or receive the pictures the user viewed through it and also store the information without knowledge of the user or Snapchat.
     Snapchat stated: "We can confirm that Snapchat's servers were never breached and were not the sources of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send receive Snaps, a practice that we explicitly prohibit in our terms of use precisely because they compromise our users' security."
     Even though Snapchat states that they are secure in this scenario, it was hacked last year when over 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers were stored by a site called SnapchatDB which had a hacking weakness that used to exist in the program.
     It is unclear who is behind it, but these pictures and videos have been posted up onto the web due to the information collected by this third-party site. There is no site that has all of the leaks on it, but according to one reddit user "The Snappening" was "13GB of low resolution garbage. Mundane, boring shit like "check out my new hat!" or "heehee my shoes are so silly!" Although we are not aware of what site all of these images may be posted to they are being circulated throughout the web and people are finding them.

Sources: Engadget
              TheGuardian

5 Million Gmail Passwords Published, Cause for Worry?

 

     You may be getting prompted to update your Google password in the near future as they over 5 million were published to the web just the other day. A Russian Bitcoin forum member has been posting over 5 million passwords and up to 60% of them are still in use. Although there is not a clear answer as to how these passwords were obtained, Google stated to Cnews that it is coming from a long period of hacking and phishing. None of the Gmail servers were breached and most of the information that was posted was older which is a somewhat comforting feeling, but in the next few weeks it is advised that Google users be aware of any suspicious activity on their accounts and to change their password as a safety precaution.

Google Chrome 64-bit Available: Faster and more Secure

     We all are constantly looking to download the best browser to enhance our online experience and Google Chrome 64 bit has delivered. With not only faster speeds on sites like youtube.com but also improving security and stability in many ways.
     Tasks such as decoding HD video have proven to be 15% faster under the 64-bit version of Chrome. Mozilla Firefox who is one of Chrome's leading competitors has been working on a 64-bit version just like Google but Google but Mozilla won't pull the trigger on releasing it to the public unlike Google. This may cause us to see a release of Mozilla's Firefox 64-bit in the near future if they want to enter this part of the market.
      Google has also said that it has seen an average improvement of 25% in graphics and multimedia content. This means less buffering for high quality video, less crashes and an overall better performance coming out of the browser. In addition the crash rate of Chrome 64-bit has been tested and shown to be half of that experienced in Chrome 32-bit.
     However there is one small downside to the new 64-bit and it's the fact that Chrome 64-bit does not support of a few of the not so popular plug-ins that are available for Chrome 32-bit. It is offering support for most of the major plug-ins such as Silverlight, Java and Flash which have all been updated to 64-bit furthering the increase in performance with this browser.

     To check if your google chrome is up to date to the 64-bit version go to the "about google chrome" selection from the drop down menu on the top righ-hand side of your Chrome browser and you will be able to update your browser if needed. If you are already up to date it will tell you "Google Chrome is up to date" or you will notice you have Google Chrome 37.
   

      Now it seems like a no brainer to go with the new Google Chrome 64-bit browser and that is because as of now it really is the best browser available. Until Mozilla releases a 64-bit version of Firefox overall this new version of Chrome has the best security, speeds and stability which is really what we want out of our browsers to begin with. At this time Google Chrome 64-bit is only available for Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 8/8.1. To download the new browser and test these claims yourself: Download Chrome 64-bit for Windows. Be sure that you see "For Windows 8/7 64-bit" below the Download Chrome button as shown below.

Sources: Extreme Tech
             Chromium Blog

Good Idea or Bad? GoPro Dog Mount Harness

     We all know that people are treating dogs more and more like one of the family in this day and age, some people even consider them to be their children and would do anything for them from spending thousands on surgeries, buying outfits for them and even feeding them food off their own dinner table. Is it to the point where we want them to start video taping for us so we can see what it's like to live in the eyes of a dog?
   
     This product is definitely designed for a certain niche of people and although we may not see it a dog with a GoPro attached to it's back often it is something that is out there now. This is meant to analyze whether this idea is a good/profitable one or whether it will take a belly flop and be a waste of time.
   
     GoPro was first created for users who participated in extreme sports to record their awesome skills and allow them to share it with others while not having to hold a video camera or worry about it breaking. I then think to myself what is a dog doing that needs to be recorded besides exploring the backyard, playing with people and eating. I personally may not understand it, but when I go and look on facebook with all of the videos and pictures of dogs on there it may not be such a bad idea after all.
   

     This product is designed for dogs from 15lbs - 120lbs and enables the owner to later watch what their dog has been up to all day. Their are practical uses for it for example if your dog was constantly getting out of the backyard you could use this to see where they are getting out and prevent it from happening in the future or perhaps the dog has been acting oddly after coming in from the backyard and you find out that they have been finding and eating mushrooms in the backyard. This may not be an idea to provide the ultimate extreme video or share brilliantly taken videos but rather a way to find out more about your own dog and show what a day in the life of your dog looks like.

     This product is only $60 so it's not something that you need to break the bank to purchase if it interests you, but I definitely don't see a large future for this product unless dogs can start making purchases with their kibbles and bits. Just like many products out there this is meant to target a certain niche of people If you're bored of watching humans create video this is a great option for you!

Sources: Wired Article