Apple's Siri tells kid to "Shut the f**k up"

Anthony Garreffa | Mobile Devices | Jan 2, 2012 11:22 PM CST

Originally, I didn't want to use the headline with a swear word in it, but it does look catchy. Now that you're reading this news, the latest news out of the UK will interest you in regards to Apple's iPhone 4S personal assistant, Siri.

A demo version of the phone was on display in Tesco, where a 12-year-old kid was testing it and asked Siri "How many people are there in the world?" Siri replied with "Shut the f**k up, you ugly tw**." Wow. Just wow, Siri.

UK-based newspaper, The Sun, had an exclusive story, where the mother of the child is obviously rather shocked and annoyed with Siri's response. She told The Sun:

Continue reading: Apple's Siri tells kid to "Shut the f**k up" (full post)

Nintendo to launch full-blown app store for Wii U

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Jan 2, 2012 10:35 PM CST

Nintendo's next-generation console, the Wii U, is only a few months away from our grubby little paws. With this thought, The Daily has learned that Nintendo plans to implement a "full-blown app store" for the system.

At the moment, Nintendo mainly use repositories that act as "light" app stores: The DSi Shop for its portables, and the Wii Shop for the current Wii console. Most of the apps found on the 'stores' are just quite basic, and don't serve customers what they want like the Android Market and App Store on the smartphone/tablet devices.

The Wii U's as-yet-unnamed store will definitely offer more, proferring a wider variety of apps, according to a person familiar with the matter. Wii U owners will be able to use apps that operate on the Wii U itself, such as MLB.TV, and others that run independently on the Wii U's controller. Considering that the Wii U's controller is a beast in itself, sporting a 6.2-inch touch screen, one can imagine the possibilities it can bring to the table.

Continue reading: Nintendo to launch full-blown app store for Wii U (full post)

Paranormal Activity 4 will haunt you soon

Anthony Garreffa | TV, Movies & Home Theatre | Jan 2, 2012 8:26 PM CST

I fondly remember the first Paranormal Activity, I followed it for a while and had an early viewing of it and loved it. It wasn't the best horror movie, but it did what it was made to do: be super cheap on budget, be a decent movie and compared to Avatar, made a crap tonne of money-to-budget ratio.

According to a Paramount press release, there's a fourth Paranormal Activity coming out this year. Now, the second one (to me) was the peak of the series, I have a newborn at home now and those scenes are just... powerful. I mean, what would you do? If it were you? The third one, while good in explaining the back story, just didn't have enough scares.

A fourth one, I'd love to know what direction it would take. Here's the press release from Paramount:

Continue reading: Paranormal Activity 4 will haunt you soon (full post)

Pre-CES 2012 preview of Thermaltake coolers including Frio Extreme

Cameron Wilmot | Cases, Cooling & PSU | Jan 2, 2012 10:37 AM CST

Last month we visited the Thermaltake HQ in Taipei where we stumbled upon a few products where we got the chance to film them on video in this pre-CES 2012 preview of some new cooling products from the Taiwanese company.

Starting off in the air department we have the Frio Extreme which is similar in design to past Frio series air coolers from Thermaltake, but the Extreme version which will come out sometime in Q1 2012 takes things to a whole new level being able to provide up to 250 watts of CPU cooling ability.

Included on the cooler are two 120mm cooling fans and two aluminum heat blocks with six heatpipes. This cooler also comes with a new fan controller attached to it which allows you to adjust the fan speed in a small little black unit.

Continue reading: Pre-CES 2012 preview of Thermaltake coolers including Frio Extreme (full post)

Taiwan foundries to cut prices

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Jan 2, 2012 6:26 AM CST

The world may be going through some changes, and I really think we're just beginning to scrape the surface of a real GFC, but Taiwanese foundries are talking about slicing prices by 10- to 15-percent for wafters built on mature node processes.

These wafters have lower production costs, so the foundries are passing on the savings to you and me, the customer. The move is said to build consumer confidence in building their inventory after a shaky 2011 in the U.S. and European markets. DigiTimes reports that although there is slow demand for mature process manufacturing, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) continues to see orders build up for the advanced 28nm technology (such as the great Radeon HD 7970 from AMD), according to sources at non Taiwan-based chip suppliers.

This is only a good thing, savings on technology. It also allows vendors to buy cheaper, and pass those savings onto the customer, too. All we need now is a drop in the mid to high-end range of GPUs and I'll be happy. Give me some HD 7970's for under $500 AUD and I'll be a happy chappy.

Continue reading: Taiwan foundries to cut prices (full post)

Spotted: Gigabyte's Radeon HD 7970, sports custom-design

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Jan 2, 2012 5:26 AM CST

The first picture of a non-reference design AMD Radeon HD 7970, which comes from Gigabyte. The GV-R797OC-3GD is a factory-overclocked card, which makes use of Gigabyte's Ultra Durable VGA+ PCB and custom-design triple-fan WindForce cooler.

The Ultra Durable VGA+ PCB uses a 2oz copper layer for better electrical stability and heat distribution, ferrite-core chokes, low RDS (on) MOSFETs, hand-picked high-performance GDDR5 memory chips, and more. The cooler sports a combination of heatsinks and aluminum fin arrays to feed heat from the GPU, memory, and VRM to its copper heat-pipes and ventilated by three fans.

Gigabyte make use of a non-reference design, using non-reference cooling assembly, but most likely a reference design PCB, except, it's red. No details on clock speeds or pricing yet.

Continue reading: Spotted: Gigabyte's Radeon HD 7970, sports custom-design (full post)

RumorTT: God Of War IV to feature co-op, arrives late 2012

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Jan 2, 2012 2:24 AM CST

In the January 2012 issue of UK magazine PSM3, they suggest that the fourth major instalment in the PlayStation-exclusive God Of War series is coming at the end of this year and will feature online co-op play.

Co-op has been popular lately, with Resistance 3, Dead Island, Gears of War 3 and Portal 2 all sporting the amazing feature. Not that it's new, but it seemed to disappear when next-gen consoles and their seemingly watered-down games started coming out.

GoW IV's development news is nothing new, but the co-op nugget is. GoW IV will see players breaking out of Hades, with the two protagonists will be a dearly-departed Kratos and his equally undead brother, Deimos. I hope to see some more on this soon.

Continue reading: RumorTT: God Of War IV to feature co-op, arrives late 2012 (full post)

TV makers are looking for more profits, but on thinner TVs

Anthony Garreffa | Displays & Projectors | Jan 2, 2012 12:26 AM CST

Welcome to 2012, where the end of the world is higher TV prices. This is what TV manufacturers such as LG want to bring, after being hit by profit declines over the years, this year will start with even thinner and lighter TVs in the hopes of sparking new customer interest and driving the average TV price, higher.

LG said on Friday that it plans to sell a 55-inch TV that is just, wait for it, 3/16 of an inch thick and only weighs 16.5 pounds. Samsung are expected to unveil a similar TV at the industry's biggest trade fair, Consumer Electronics Show, in just a few days time in Las Vegas.

Both companies have yet to discuss the thing we rub between our fingers as a gesture for... money. Of course, this new technology is expected to have a nice premium. NPD DisplaySearch estimates the new 55-inch TV models will begin at around $8000 in Q3 2012, and fall below the $4000 mark by the end of 2013 as sales volume increases and companies find new ways to manufacture the TVs less expensively.

Continue reading: TV makers are looking for more profits, but on thinner TVs (full post)

Sapphire are preparing 6 non-reference AMD Radeon HD 7970's

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Jan 1, 2012 7:28 PM CST

First off, Happy New Year! I hope you're all enjoying your festivities, while here in South Australia it has been a blistering 41C (over 104F) for the past 2 days straight and it is currently 43C right now. Joy! Onto the news! Our GPU editor sent this to me, and at first I thought it was tease, because he loves to do that to me. But, it was not, it was news that had floated onto the great world wide web.

Sapphire's leaked document, which reveals their non-reference AMD Radeon HD 7970's that they are currently baking in Sapphire ovens. Sapphire have an amazing six cards that will be non-reference, all ranging in features, speeds and more. One of them is the "Atomic RX" which goes from the original 1000MHz Core speed to a whopping 1335MHz. It sports the usual 3GB of RAM up from the 5500MHz stock speed, to 5735MHz. Output-wise, we have 2 x MiniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 1.4a and 1 x Single Link DVI.

There is also an "Atomic WC" which seems to be identical, but a water-cooled version. The other models include "Toxic 3G" which has a GPU clock of 1125MHz and 5600MHz RAM, "FLEX 6G" which as you guessed, has 6GB of RAM and 6 x MiniDisplayPort outputs with GPU clocks of just 925MHz and 5500MHz RAM, "VaporX 3G" which should have Sapphire's awesome VaporX cooler, with GPU clocks of 1010MHz and 5500MHz RAM. The final two are the Dual-Fan 3G with 925MHz Core and 5500MHz RAM and finally, the stock "Da Original" with 925MHz GPU clocks and 5500MHz RAM.

Continue reading: Sapphire are preparing 6 non-reference AMD Radeon HD 7970's (full post)

Borderlands 2 gets some more info on "Gunzerker"

Anthony Garreffa | Gaming | Dec 30, 2011 6:33 AM CST

This is one game I hope doesn't get affected by consolitis, where Gearbox have shared some information about the next Borderlands title. It has already been reported that the four playable characters would be either replaced, or drastically altered, but one of them was already teased: a bearded dwarf named "Salvador" is a "Gunzerker" who can dual-wield any two weapons, and acts like Brick the Berserker from the original Borderlands.

Back in August, two of his abilities were teased. The first one increases the fire rate of any gun the longer the trigger is held, while the second boosts accuracy when dual-wielding same class weapons or doubles damage with mixed class weapons.

But now, we have some backstory to this character, with Gearbox saying:

Continue reading: Borderlands 2 gets some more info on "Gunzerker" (full post)

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